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CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

Bacon's Life 1 



CHAPTER II. 
Bacon's Works 29 

CHAPTER III. 
Bacon's Survey of the Sciences €6 

CHAPTER IV. 

Bacon's Reform of Scientific Method .... 80 

CHAPTER V. 

Bacon's Philosophical and Religious Opinions . . . 159 

CHAPTER VI. 
Bacon's Influence on Philosophy and Science . . . 192 



P BE FACE. 



The object of this book is to present the character of the 
revolution which Bacon endeavoured to effect in scientific 
method, as well as the nature of his philosophical opinions 
generally, in a form intelligible and interesting to readers 
who have no technical acquaintance with logic or philo- 
sophy. The ground-plan of Bacon's work and the leading 
ideas with which he was inspired seem to me easily com- 
prehensible by any person who has a general interest in 
the history and progress of thought. And the place of 
Bacon, standing mid -way between the old times and the 
new, is one which cannot be neglected by any one wno is 
desirous of informing himself of the manner in which our 
modern ideas in science, in philosophy, and in logic have 
grown out of those which, for so many centuries prior to the 
Renaissance, held almost undisputed sway over the civilized 
world. Those who are induced to go more deeply into the 
topics treated in these chapters may be referred to my edition 
of Bacon's Novum Organum (Oxford, at the Clarendon Press, 
1878), and to the valuable edition of Bacon's Philosophical 
"Works, contained in the first five volumes of Ellis and 
Spedding's Bacon (Longmans and Co.). 

To the Delegates of the Clarendon Press I have to express 
my obligations for the free use which they have allowed me 
to make of the Introduction and Notes to my edition of the 
Novum Organum. I have sometimes embodied in this work 
several pages of the Introduction, though it must, of course, 

a 



vi PREFACE 



be understood that I have only used the more popular parts of 
it, and that the present book in no sense replaces my larger 
work for the purposes of the professed student of logic, philo- 
sophy, or the history of science. 

To Mr. Spedding I must also express my obligations for 
allowing me, with that courtesy and kindness which he always 
extends to those labouring in the same fields with himself, to 
draw the materials for my chapter on the Life of Bacon from 
his Life and Times of Francis Bacon (Triibner and Co.) and 
his Letters and Life of Francis Bacon (Longmans and Co.). 
Mr. Spedding must not, however, be held responsible for every 
remark which I have made or every inference which I have 
drawn. But, though I have endeavoured to exercise my 
own judgment on the facts, without slavishly following 
Mr. Spedding' s interpretation of them, I feel bound, after 
a careful perusal of his volumes, to express my general 
agreement both with his conception of Bacon's character and 
with his presentation of the principal passages in Bacon's life. 
Notwithstanding the mass of prejudice still remaining to be 
dissipated, I believe that his view of Bacon's personal history 
is the one which, in the main, will ultimately prevail. 1 

Lincoln College, 

Jan. 25, 1881. 

1 It is only fair to the reader to inform him that a different view of 
Bacon's character and conduct from that maintained hy Mr. Spedding, 
and generally adopted by myself, has been recently advocated by Dr. 
Abbott in his Introduction to Bacon's Essays, in an Article in the Con- 
temporary Review for June, 1876, and in a work on Bacon and Essex % 
published in 1877. 



BACON 



CHAPTER I. 



Francis Bacon was born at York House in the Strand, January 
22, 1560-1. He was the youngest son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, 
Lord Keeper to Queen Elizabeth, by his second marriage with 
Anne, one of the daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke, of Giddy 
Hall, in the county of Essex, formerly tutor to Edward the 
Sixth. One of his mother's sisters had been married, also as 
second wife, to William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burghley. 
Thus, the subject of this volume was not only the son of one of 
Elizabeth's highest officers of state, but, through his mother, 
the nephew of the most influential and the most able of all her 
ministers. By his first marriage Sir Nicholas Bacon had a 
numerous family, but by the second marriage he had two sons 
only, Anthony and Francis. Anthony, the elder of the two, 
died at an early age in 1601, and, though he was mixed up 
a good deal with foreign affairs and seems to have been a man 
of energetic character, never attained to any great celebrity. 
Francis was a boy of sickly constitution, but he soon showed 
a special aptitude for learning, being doubtless encouraged 
and assisted therein by his mother, " a choice lady," as Rawley ' 

1 Life of Bacon by his chaplain, William Rawley, prefixed to the 
Kesusoitatio. 



BACON. 






tells us, (i and eminent for piety, virtue, and learning, being 
exquisitely skilled for a woman in the Greek and Latin 
tongues." According to the same authority, he was, as a 
child, specially noticed by the Queen, who would often, from 
his gravity and the maturity of his discourse beyond his years, 
term him " her young Lord Keeper." Being asked on one 
occasion how old he was, he answered " that he was two years 
younger than her Majesty's happy reign ;" with which answer, 
we read, the Queen was much taken. 

When only twelve years and three months old, in April, 
1573, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, residing in the 
same rooms with his elder brother, Anthony. At Christmas, 
1575, he quitted the University, and in the following June 
was admitted, together with his brother, "de societate 
magistorum," that is probably as an ancient, at Gray's Inn, 

It was during Bacon's residence, as a young boy, at Cam- 
bridge, that he was first struck with the idea of inaugurating 
a new method in the study of Nature. He told Rawley that 
he was only about sixteen years of age when he first fell into 
the dislike of the philosophy of Aristotle, " not for the worth- 
lessness of the author, to whom he would ever ascribe all high 
attributes, but for the unfruitfulness of the way." " This," 
says Mr. Spedding, " ought to be regarded as the most im- 
portant event of his life ; the event which had a greater in- 
fluence than any other upon his character and future course. 
From that moment there was awakened within his breast the 
appetite which cannot be satiated, and the passion which 
Cannot commit excess. From that moment he had a vocation 
which employed and stimulated all the energies of his mind, 
gave a value to every vacant interval of time, an interest and 
significance to every random thought and casual accession of 
knowledge ; an object to live for as wide as humanity, as 
immortal as the human race ; an idea to live in vast and lofty 



BACON'S LIFE. 



enough to fill the soul for ever with religious and heroic aspi- 
rations. From that moment, though still subject to inter- 
ruptions, disappointments, errors, and regrets, lie could never 
be without either work, or hope, or consolation." Other in- 
fluences which Mr. Spedding supposes to have possessed Bacon's 
mind from the first were a zeal for the reformed religion, 
derived from his mother, and a feeling of intense loyalty and 
patriotism, derived from his father and the political surround- 
ings amid which he found himself in his home. 

In September, 1576, young Bacon was sent out to Paris 
w r ith Sir Amias Paulet, who had just been appointed Ambas- 
sador to the Court of France. That country was then the 
theatre of stirring events, and Bacon had ample opportunities 
of witnessing the effects of misgovernment and civil dissen- 
sions. He visited several of the provinces, and seems to have 
made good use of his eyes and ears. In the spring of 1578-9, 
he returned to England, bearing with him a despatch from 
Sir Amias Paulet to the Queen, in which he was mentioned 
as " of great hope, endued with many good and singular parts," 
and one who, " if God gave him life, would prove a very able 
and sufficient subject to do her Highness good and acceptable 
service."" Shortly before his return, and while he was still at 
Paris, he had one of those curious dreams which, if they har- 
monize with any subsequent event, are remembered all our 
lives, if not, are speedily forgotten. He dreamt that his 
father's house in the country was plastered all over with black 
mortar. About this very time his father was seized with a 
sudden illness, of which he soon afterwards died. It is said 
that Sir Nicholas Bacon had intended to purchase a large 
estate for his younger son, but the transaction had not been 
effected, and, when Francis returned to England, it was to 
find that his fortune was so insufficient, that he must at once 
turn to some remunerative employment. He naturally took 

B 2 



BACON. 



to the Bar, and spent the next few years in the quiet study of 
the law. On June 27, 1582, he was admitted an Utter 
Barrister of Gray's Inn, a position, however, which did not at 
that time confer the right to practise. In or about the follow- 
ing 1 year he composed his first essay on the Installation of 
Philosophy, to which he gave the name of Temjjoris Partus 
Maximus. At the age, therefore, at which most young men 
now leave the University, Bacon had already begun the great 
work of his life, the attack on the existing systems and 
methods of science, with a view to the advancement of man's 
knowledge and power. 

In the Parliament which met in November, 1584, when 
the nation was in a white heat on the question of the main- 
tenance of the Protestant religion and the Protestant succes- 
sion, Bacon was returned to the House of Commons for the 
borough of Melcombe in Dorsetshire, having been also returned 
by Burghley for Gatton. In the next Parliament, which met 
in October, 1586, just after sentence had been passed by the 
Commissioners on Mary Queen of Scots, he sat for Taunton, 
and is mentioned by D'Ewes as one of the speakers, on the 
4th of November, on the " Great Cause/' Except the fact, 
however, that he spoke on the popular side, we know nothing 
of this speech. In the same year (1586), he became a bencher 
of Gray's Inn, and thus acquired the right to practise before 
the Courts at Westminster. At this time, therefore, when he 
was hardly twenty-six years of age, we may regard him as 
fairly started on his career, both as a lawyer and a politician. 

In the Parliament which met on February 4, 1588-9, Bacon 
sat for Liverpool, and his rising importance is now attested 
by the frequent appearance of his name in the Journals. There 
is evidence to show that he was also employed in drawing 
State-papers. It was probably in the year 1591 that he first 
formed the acquaintance with Essex, which soon ripened into so 



BACON'S LIFE. 5 



extraordinary an intimacy. Besides the common tastes and 
interests which bound them together, Bacon thought that he 
discovered in Essex the highest hopes of future service to his 
country. " I held at that time/' he wrote fourteen years after- 
wards, " my Lord to be the fittest instrument to do good to the 
State ; and therefore I applied myself to Him in a manner 
which I think happeneth rarely among men/'' That Bacon's 
friendship with Essex was a sincere one, whatever we may 
think of their subsequent relations, there can be no doubt. It 
was also about this time that, eager to obtain some position 
which would enable him freely to follow his favourite pursuits, 
he used, in a letter to Burghley, the celebrated expression, "I 
have taken all knowledge to be my province." The oppor- 
tunity of leisure which he so earnestly coveted never came till 
the last few years of his life, and the best of the work which 
he did for science and letters was executed amidst the 
struggles or the duties of his professional career. Mr. Sped- 
ding conjectures that it was in January or February, 1592-3, 
that Bacon was encouraged to write Observations on a Libel 
published this present year y 1592, the libel being an invec- 
tive against the Queen and Government, supposed to have 
been written by Father Parsons, the Jesuit. It was about 
this time also that he was elected knight of the shire for the 
County of Middlesex, in the Parliament which met on the 
19th of February. In this Parliament he distinguished him- 
self by his independence, heading the resistance of the 
Commons to* a proposal of the Lords that they should take 
part in the deliberations on Supply, a resistance which re- 
quired some courage on his part, as his powerful relation, the 
Lord Treasurer Burghley, was the spokesman of the Lords. 
He also demurred to the largely increased taxation which, in 
their fear of a foreign invasion, this Parliament imposed upon 
the people. Considering the absolute submission which the 



6 BACON. 



Court then expected from its followers, we are hardly sur- 
prised to find that Bacon's conduct resulted in his exclusion- 
from the Queen's presence. Her displeasure was, however, 
partly removed through the intervention of Essex, and, for 
some time, Bacon, whose private affairs were sadly in want of 
the relief which some lucrative appointment might afford him, 
fed himself on the hope, — vain as it turned out, — first of the 
post of Attorney, and then, when that was given to Coke, of 
Solicitor-General. His speeches on the Subsidy Bill could 
not be altogether forgiven, though Elizabeth, as was her 
wont, long encouraged the suits which, from the first pro- 
bably, she had no intention of granting. Coke, too, when he 
became Attorney- General, probably used his influence against 
Bacon's appointment to the Solicitorship. At one time, sick 
with hope deferred, Bacon, writing to Essex, expresses his in ; 
tention, "If her Majesty reject me, this to do. I will retire 
myself with a couple of men to Cambridge, and there spend 
my life in my studies and contemplations, without looking 
back." It might have been well, perhaps, for his own reputa- 
tion and the cause of learning, had he carried out this project. 
We should never have heard of him as Lord Chancellor, but we 
should have been spared the many controversies with which 
our literature is still perplexed, as to the morality of his 
public life; and his " new instrument" for advancing the 
sciences, instead of being a fragment, would probably have 
been complete. But, though it was part of Elizabeth's plan 
to punish Bacon, she had by no means made up her mind to 
let her " watch-candle," as she used to call him, go quite out. 
Accordingly, by employing, him on some state business, she 
contrived to shed on him one ray from the light of her coun- 
tenance, just sufficient to retain him in her service, and to 
leave it open to herself to make future use of him, if it should 
•ever so please her. During this time of waiting, his pecuniary 



BACON'S LIFE. 



necessities were supplied by Anthony, who was always ready, 
without grudging 1 or murmuring, not only to spend his own 
substance, but to contract debts for the sake of his younger 
brother. After the Solicitorship was definitely given to 
Serjeant Fleming, Essex presented him with a piece of land 
(which he doubtless mortgaged), and the Crown also granted 
him the lease of certain lands at Twickenham in reversion, so 
that he was probably able in some measure to satisfy the 
importunity of his creditors. 

Bacon seems now to have betaken himself mainly to literary 
woik. In 1597 appeared the Essays in their earliest 
shape, being only ten in number, and being bound up in the 
same volume (a small octavo) with the Medilationes Sacra 
and the Colours of Good and Evil (or, as they are called in 
.the original edition, Places of Persuasion and JJissuasion). 
To about the same period we ought probably to refer several of 
the ojouscula, which were afterwards either incorporated 
into his philosophical works or laid by as incomplete. And, 
in the Christmas holidays of 1596, he presented the Queen 
with a specimen of a work which he purposed to write on The 
Maxims of the Law, as if by way of showing that he was not 
forgetting the claims on him of his own profession. This 
work was never finished. 

If we except the active part which Bacon took in the legal 
reforms enacted by the Parliament of 1597, and his arrest for 
debt, while returning from an examination at the Tower, in 
1598, nothing of sufficient importance in his life to be re- 
counted in this brief biography took place between the pub- 
lication of the Essays and the arraignment of Essex for High 
Treason in February, 1G00-1. Into this unhappy subject, 
beyond the barest and briefest notice, it is not my intention 
or my province to enter. After the return of Essex, contrary 
to express orders, from his unsuccessful expedition into 



8 BACON. 



Ireland, and his confinement on the suspicion of harbour- 
ing treasonable designs against the Government, Bacon, 
who had now for some time been restored to access, advised 
the Queen to make matters up with him privately, and 
" restore him to his former attendance, with some addition of 
honour to take away discontent." Already, however, in 
popular estimation he was supposed to be using his influence 
with tke Queen not for but against his former patron, and in 
consequence he was exposed to the popular wrath, which, as 
Mr. Spedding says, ''gathered with a fury proportioned to its 
ignorance."" From that time to this it has been common to 
speak of Bacon's base ingratitude towards his friend and bene- 
factor. If it be true, however, that, while unconscious of the 
real nature of Essex's plans, he had endeavoured to shield him 
and effect his reconciliation with the Queen, and had even in- 
curred the Royal displeasure by doing so, but that, when con- 
vinced that the Earl had long been meditating overt acts of 
treason, of which indeed the mad and wicked attempt to raise 
the city no longer left any doubt, he felt his duty to the 
Throne and the peace and well-being of the country had claims 
on him superior to those of private friendship, I confess that I 
can see no sufficient reason for the persistent and bitter attacks 
upon his honour and character which it has been the fashion 
to make. And that this is the true history of the transaction, 
Mr. Spedding' s narrative, I think, abundantly proves. We 
may deeply regret, as no doubt Bacon himself did, that cir- 
cumstances forced him to take a part so hostile to his former 
friend, but as tl one of her Majesty's Counsel Learned in the 
Law," at that time a very small body, and forming, as Mr. 
Spedding says, "a sort of legal body-guard " to the Queen, 
he had really no alternative, short of virtually declaring his 
own sympathy and complicity with treason, but to engage in 
the prosecution of Essex and Southampton. And, having 



BACON'S LIFE. 



once engaged in the prosecution, it was clearly his duty to 
perform his task to the very best of his ability. We may 
well believe, as he tells us himself, that " he had spent more 
time in vain in studying how to make the Earl a good servant 
to the Queen and State, than he had done in anything else." 
And yet, when he had wholly and hopelessly failed in this 
effort, we can understand how, without any singular baseness 
or ingratitude, he might come to place his services unreservedly 
at the disposal of the Crown. 

Essex was condemned, Bacon having undoubtedly taken a 
more effective part in the trial than did Coke, the Attorney- 
General, who, indeed, exhibited much incompetence. Before 
his execution, he confessed quite enough, and more than 
enough, to justify his sentence, But there was still much 
popular feeling on his side, and, hence, it was thought desir- 
able that an authentic narrative of the conspiracy should be 
put forth by authority. Bacon was commanded by the Queen 
to prepare a draft of this document, but it was afterwards sub- 
mitted to "certain principal Councillors," and " perused, 
weighed, censured, altered, and made almost a new writing, 
according to their Lordships' better consideration ; " after 
which it was " exactly perused by the Queen herself, and 
some alterations made again by her appointment." The 
responsibility, therefore, for the Declaration of the Practices 
and Treasons attempted and committed by Robert, late Earl 
of Essex, in the form which it ultimately assumed, rests 
with the Queen and her Ministers, and not with Bacon, whose 
share in it was simply ministerial. 

In the spring of 1601, Bacon lost his brother Anthony, 
witli whom he had always lived on the most cordial and 
affectionate terms. On March 21, 1602-3, the last day of 
the old year according to the then reckoning, Elizabeth herself 
died, and was succeeded by James I. Bacon at once tendered 



10 BACON. 



his services to the new king, and was continued "of the 
Learned Counsel in such manner as before he was to the 
Queen." He did not, however, receive any promotion, for as 
James, true to the prudent and wary character of his country- 
men, expressed himself, "Every new king ought at least to 
let a year and a day pass before he makes any innovation." 
Two days before the Coronation, Bacon received, with three 
hundred others, the cheap honour of knighthood, his wish that 
" the manner might be such as might grace him, since the 
matter will not," being thus disappointed. At this time 
he seems to have possessed considerable leisure, and to have 
devoted himself to reflecting and writing on his favourite 
idea, the interpretation of nature or the extension of the 
kingdom of man. Quite sincerely, I believe, in a letter to his 
cousin, Robert Cecil, he says : " My ambition now I shall 
only put upon my pen, whereby I shall be able to maintain 
memory and merit of the times succeeding." And the ambi- 
tion was no mean one. For, in a paper written about this 
time, he proposes to himself no less a task than to " kindle a 
light in nature — a light which shall in its very rising touch 
and illuminate all the border-regions that confine upon the 
circle of our present knowledge ; and so spreading further and 
further shall presently disclose and bring into sight all that is 
most hidden and secret in the world." The man who should 
succeed in accomplishing this work, he truly says, " would 
be the benefactor indeed of the human race, the propagator of 
man's empire over the universe, the champion of liberty, the 
conqueror and subduer of necessities." And why should he 
not be the man ? For he believed that he " was born for the 
service of mankind," and he found by experience that he 
" was fitted for nothing so well as the study of Truth." He 
had indeed, at one time, " applied himself to acquire the arts 
of civil life," " hoping that, if he rose to any place of honour 



BACON'S LIFE. u 



in the State, he should have a larger command of industry and 
ability to help him in his work," and, moreover, that he 
" might get something done too for the good of men's souls •/' 
but finding that u his zeal was mistaken for ambition, and 
that his life had already reached the turning-point," he "put 
all those thoughts aside, and" (in pursuance of his old deter- 
mination) " betook himself wholly to this work." It was above 
all things important, if possible, to interest the king in his 
designs, and this he thought he could most effectually do by 
presenting him with a general survey and criticism of the 
existing stock of knowledge. Hence, probably, the origin of 
the two books of the Proficience and Advancement of 
Learning, the first of which was apparently written in 1603, 
though the work was not published till 1605. 

But, though mainly engaged in attempting to carry out hi& 
grand design of subduing nature to the service of man, Bacon 
did not wholly withdraw from affairs of State. Thus, he pre- 
sented the king with a Discourse Touching the Happy Union of 
the Kingdoms of England and Scotland, in which he insinuated 
that much might be left to time, as in the more perfect unions 
effected by nature, and again with Considerations Touching the 
better Pacification and Edification of the Church of England, 
in which he counselled a wide toleration of differences. He 
was, however, at this time little employed by the Court either 
in political or legal business. 

In 1604 appeared the Apology concerning the late Earl 
of Essex, of the reception of which we have no information. 
Bacon seems to have taken a considerable share in the busi- 
ness of James' first parliament, to have been placed on many 
of the committees of the House of Commons, and sometimes- 
to have acted as its spokesman, from all which circumstances 
we may infer his general popularity at that time. When the 



Commissioners for considering: the union of the two kin 



o 



»g" 



12 BACON. 



doms were appointed, his name was proposed first. He was 
also employed to draw up an analysis of all the questions that 
would have to be dealt with for the king's information, and, 
moreover, was entrusted, by his fellow-commissioners on the 
English side, with the charge of digesting the articles of the 
resolutions into their ultimate form. Notwithstanding, how- 
ever, his parliamentary position, his reputation, and his 
connexions, he was again passed over for the Solicitorship, the 
reason not improbably being that he and Coke, who was then 
Attorney, could not work together. In 1606, being then in 
his forty-seventh year, he married Alice Barnham, an alder- 
man's daughter, " an handsome maiden," and " to his liking."" 
At his wedding, we read that he was " clad from top to toe in 
purple." Of his domestic life we hear nothing, and may 
therefore infer that it was peaceable, if not happy. On June 
25, 1607, he was at last promoted to the Solicitor-General- 
ship, an office the value of which was then reckoned at about 
1000/. a year. It was probably about this time that he finally 
settled the jplan of the Great Inst duration, and began to 
call it by that name. The Cogitata et Visa, which con- 
tains the substance of the first book of the Novum Organum, 
must have been composed as early as the sunimer or autumn 
of 1607, and, if we may ; ccept literally what Rawley tells us 
of this latter work — namely, that he had himself seen at least 
twelve revisions of it, " revised year by year, one after 
another/' we must fix the year 1608 as the time at which 
Bacon probably began to compose the Novum Organum itself, 
It will be seen, therefore, that his legal promotion in no way 
impaired his literary activity or his philosophical ardour. 
Writing to his friend Toby Matthew, and speaking of the 
Great Instaurafion, he says : " Of this I can assure you, that, 
though many things of great hope decay with youth (and 
multitude of civil businesses is wont to diminish the price, 



BACON'S LIFE. 13 

though not the delight, of contemplations), yet the proceeding 
in this work doth gain with me upon my affection and desire, 
both by years and businesses." In addition to his appoint- 
ment to the Solicitorship, he, at this time, had a wind-fall from 
the death of Mylle, Clerk to the Star-Chamber, to the rever- 
sion of which place, valued at 20007. a year, he had been 
appointed, through the interest of Burghley, as long ago as 
1589. Bacon was now a wealthy man for those times, his 
annual income amounting, according to his own calculation, 
to over 4500/. a year, even when the interest on his debts 
was paid. About the end of 1609, came out the Be Sapientia 
Veterum, one of his smallest, but one of his most finished 
works. Of the ideas which this work is intended to illustrate, 
I shall have to speak in the next chapter. The following year 
Bacon took a prominent part in the debates in Parliament on 
questions touching the royal prerogative, his attitude being 
usually a mediatory one. While never backward to join in 
urging particular grievances, he was always cautious not to 
attack the king's prerogative in theory, and hence he was 
selected as likely to be an acceptable spokesman, when their 
long list of gravamina was presented by the Commons to the 
king on the 7th of July. It would not, perhaps, be too much 
to say that Bacon had now become the leading member of the 
House of Commons, and that he was trusted both by the 
Court and by the popular party. 

After ineffectual attempts at accommodation between the 
king and the Commons, Parliament was dissolved on February 
29,1610-11. During the period of repose which followed the 
dissolution, Bacon probably composed the new Essays which, 
together with the old ones corrected and enlarged, appeared 
in the edition of 1612. This was, by no means, the final form 
which the Essays, as known to us, assumed ; for many further 
additions were made in the edition of 1625. But, as Mr. 



l 4 BACON. 



Spedding says, " the character o£ the work was henceforth 
established, and its immortality secure." At this time also, 
he was again busy with the development of the Great Install- 
ration. Early in 1611, he appears to have obtained directly 
from the king the promise of the Attorney- Generalship, when 
it should next fall vacant. It is curious that his powerful 
cousin, Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, should rather have 
stood in the way of his preferment than have afforded him any 
assistance. Perhaps he suspected that his cousin would be a 
dangerous rival, if he should obtain too near access to the king. 
Salisbury died on the 24th May, 1612, and, though Bacon 
was unsuccessful in his efforts to succeed him as Principal 
Secretary of State, that is to say, as Prime Minister, he hence- 
forth took an important position in the king's counsels, and, 
it must be acknowledged, spoke very freely of the policy of his 
late cousin. On October 28, 1613, he was appointed Attorney- 
General, several other legal promotions taking place at the 
same time in consequence of the death of Chief Justice 
Fleming. It is interesting to notice that one of Bacon's first 
cares in his new office was an attempt to put a stop to duelling, 
the practice of which among the upper classes had now become 
very frequent. In the new Parliament, which assembled in 
the spring of 1614, he was returned for three constituencies, 
but elected to sit for his old University of Cambridge. An 
objection was taken to this return, on the ground that, as 
Attorney- General, he was ineligible, and a committee was 
appointed to search for precedents. No precedent exactly to 
the point was found ; for, though the last Attorney- General 
had sat in the last Parliament, he was not Attorney-General 
when elected. It was decided that, though the present 
Attorney- General should continue to sit in the present Parlia- 
ment, no one holding the office should be eligible in future. 
Thus the objection, in all probability, arose not from any per- 



BACON'S LIFE. 15 



sonal dislike of Bacon, but from the growing jealousy of the 
power of the Crown. It was, however, an evil omen, and 
this Parliament, after a short and stormy existence, was soon 
dissolved. That Bacon had any share in advising the disso- 
lution seems to be improbable. He appears to have possessed 
the confidence of the House, and such an event as an angry 
parting between the king and the Commons was at variance 
with all that we know of his wishes and policy. 

In 1615 occurred the examination and trial of Edmund 
Peacham, a Puritan clergyman, for High Treason. Bacon, 
with other ministers and law officers of the Crown, took part 
in examining him under torture and in attempting, previously 
to the trial, to obtain the opinion of the Judges on the 
chances of a conviction. Both practices are abhorrent to our 
modern notions of justice, but, if we except the fact that the 
opinion of the Judges was taken individually instead of as a 
body, there was nothing in the proceedings contrary to the 
usages or sentiments of those times, and the whole case owes 
its present celebrity to the fact that Bacon's name is connected 
with it. 

In the spring of 1615-16, Lord Ellesmere being then dan- 
gerously ill, Bacon appears to have received a promise of the 
Chancellorship, but, subsequently, in reply to an application 
to be made at once a member of the Privy Council, the king 
seems to have given him his choice between the reversion of 
the Chancellorship and the immediate concession of his request. 
Bacon, eager to be in a position at once to give the king re- 
sponsible advice, selected the less ambitious alternative, and 
was sworn in as a Councillor on June 9, 1616. About this 
time, as indeed often before, he was anxious to effect a codifi- 
cation of the laws, but, like so many efforts of the same kind 
since, his project was unfortunately doomed to disappointment. 
On March G, 1616-17, Lord Ellesmere, who had long been 



16 BACON. 



desirous of escaping from the cares of office, was allowed to 
resign the Great Seal, which was given, on the following day, 
to Bacon, with the title of Lord Keeper. The procession 
which attended him, two months afterwards, when he went to 
take his seat in the Court of Chancery, seems to have been an 
unusually large one. Besides his own servants, the Judges, 
and the Inns of Court, " he was accompanied by most of the 
nobility, with other gallants, to the number of more than 200 
horse." The appointment was, no doubt, largely due to Villiers, 
who was now Earl of Buckingham and the prime favourite at 
Court. There soon, however, broke out a serious difference be- 
tween the Lord Keeper and the favourite, on account of Bacon's 
opposition to a marriage between Villiers , brother and the 
daughter of Sir Edward Coke. The king, of course, took the 
side of his favourite, and it was only after many apologies and 
explanations that his displeasure, as well as that of Bucking- 
ham, was removed. Into these circumstances, and generally 
into the differences between Bacon and Coke, who were cer- 
tainly by no means well affected towards each other, it is not 
necessary that, in so brief a biography as this, I should enter. 
It is enough to say that, in his opposition to Coke, I believe 
Bacon, even where he may have been mistaken, to have been 
actuated by the belief that he was doing what was best for the 
interests of the king and the country. In politics he was by 
nature a Conservative, and was sincerely of opinion that it was 
desirable to maintain, in theory, the royal prerogative, though, 
in practice, he was always ready to stay or moderate its exercise. 
On January 4, 1617-18, Bacon's title was raised from that 
of Lord Keeper to that of Lord Chancellor, and on the 12th 
of July following he was created Baron Verulam of Yerulam. 
By the name of Lord Verulam, doubtless, and not by the 
vulgar misnomer of Lord Bacon, he expected to be known to 
posterity. As posterity, however, has insisted upon calling 



J' 



BACON'S LIFE. 17 



him by his surname, it is best to speak of him as Francis 
Bacon, thus distinguishing him from his almost equally illus- 
trious namesake, Roger Bacon, and avoiding the use of a title 
which he never bore. 

The most important event of the year 1618 was the execu- 
tion of Sir Walter Raleigh. Had it not been for the celebrity 
and accomplishments of the offender, and the strength of 
English antipathy to Spain, probably no one would have been 
found to question the justice of the sentence. To burn a town 
belonging to a friendly power, and massacre the inhabitants, is 
an act which, according to the usages of all civilized nations, can 
only be atoned for by the capital punishment of the principal 
offenders. But popular sympathy both at the time and sub- 
sequently has been with the culprit. Bacon, as one of the 
Council, advised the execution, and a large share in the respon- 
sibility attaching to the Declaration, by which the execution 
was afterwards justified, must no doubt be attributed to him. 
There is no evidence, however, that either in his advice or in 
his contribution to the Declaration he acted otherwise than as 
became the principal law officer of the Crown, or as any other 
conscientious person in his place, fully acquainted with all the 
circumstances of the case, would have acted. 

On the 12th of October, 1620, the Novum Organum, the 
first instalment of the Instauratio Mag?ia i at which Bacon 
had been working during so large a portion of his life and 
which was always the interest he had most at heart, was ready 
for distribution. In a private letter to the king, accompany- 
ing a present of the book, he says that he has " been about 
some such work near thirty years," and describes it as " no 
more but a new logic, teaching to invent and judge by induc- 
tion, and thereby to make philosophy and science both more 
true and more active." He is " ambitious that, alter these 
beginnings, and the wheel once set on going, men shall suck 

Q 



18 BACON. 

more truth out of Christian pens than hitherto they have done 
out of heathen." The king replied in a most gracious letter, 
in which he expressed his resolution to read through the book 
with care and attention, " though I should steal some hours 
from my sleep; having otherwise as little spare time to read 
it as you had to write it." It was not only as a compliment 
that Bacon had presented a copy of the Novum Organum to 
the king. He hoped to interest him in the work of building 
up the sciences, and to obtain his aid in collecting from various 
quarters the materials on which the new method was to pro- 
ceed. In acknowledging the king's letter, he says: "this 
comfortable beginning makes me hope further, that your 
Majesty will be aiding to me, in setting men on work for the 
collecting of a natural and experimental history ; which is 
basis totius negoiii." At this time he was at the zenith of his 
power and reputation. His greatest work had just been 
published, and, as a lawyer and statesman, he was evidently in 
high favour at Court, as well as, to all appearance, fairly popu- 
lar throughout the country. On January 27,1620-1, he was 
created Viscount St. Alban, " with all the ceremonies of robes 
and coronet." This he appears to have regarded as the summit 
of the dignities which he was likely to attain. " This is the 
eighth rise or reach, a diapason in music, ever a good number 
and accord for a close. And so I may without superstition be 
buried in St. Alban's habit or vestment." 

The storm, however, which was to wreck the Chancellor's 
fortunes was now gathering. Parliament met on the 30th of 
January. At first, everything went on smoothly ; but the 
attention of the House of Commons was soon directed to the 
question of Patents or Monopolies, one of the standing griev- 
ances of that time. The House, however, had no desire to 
quarrel with the king, and hence the attack was diverted from 
him to the Referees who had approved one of the most un- 



BACON'S LIFE. 19 



popular of these patents, that of Sir Giles Monperson for Inns. 
The patent had been referred to two sets of Referees, one for 
matter in law, the other for the point of conveniency. Of the 
former set of Referees, Bacon was the principal, and it was soon 
evident that he was the person on whom the House, which was 
now under the leadership of Coke, was disposed to fix the respon- 
sibility of having given evil counsel to the king. But, before he 
had the opportunity of defending himself against any formal ac- 
cusation as to his advice in the matter of monopolies, another 
and more serious charge was brought against him. The Com- 
mittee of Grievances had already begun to turn their attention 
to the subject of abuses in the Courts of Justice, when, on the 
14th of March, 1620-1, one Christopher Awbry presented a 
petition to the House charging the Chancellor with taking 
money, while a suit was still in progress. This petition was 
referred to the Committee, and was soon followed by another, 
either emanating from or based on the information of a dis- 
appointed suitor in a case of arbitration, who, though he had 
made Bacon a handsome present for the purpose of buying a 
suit of hangings for York House, had failed to obtain a deci- 
sion in his favour. On the strength of these two cases, the 
Committee reported to the House that they had found mattei 
for a charge of corruption against the Lord Chancellor. A 
few days afterwards, the Commons sent word to the Lords 
that they had "found abuses in certain eminent persons," 
and desired a conference. The result was that the Lords at 
once, and with great readiness, undertook to inquire into the 
case. They appointed three committees of four, with " power 
to take examinations of all points generally concerning this 
business." But, though the examination of witnesses was to 
take place in open court, the accused was apparently to have 
no power of cross-examination, or of excepting to the witnesses. 
Hence, as Mr, Spedding says, " we probably know the worst 

c 2 



20 BACON, 



of one side of the case, whatever obscurity may still rest upon 
it from the non-rep resentation," except by Bacon's subsequent 
confession, "of the other." Almost immediately after the 
constitution of the Committees, new cases were sent up from 
the Commons, and it was soon apparent to Bacon that the 
sentence must go against him. The only question for him 
was how and how far he could procure a mitigation of the 
penalties. At first, he seems to have hoped to escape with a 
general submission and the resignation of the Great Seal, so 
avoiding the ignominy of a formal sentence. " If it be reforma- 
tion that is sought/'' he says in a letter to the king, " the 
very taking away the seal, upon my general submission, will 
be as much in example for these four hundred years as any 
further severity." But the Lords were not in a frame of mind 
to be content either with a general submission or with the 
resignation of his office. Notwithstanding the evident wish 
of the prince and Buckingham that the House should accept 
Bacon's offer, it was resolved that the confession was not full 
enough, and must be framed so as to correspond with the 
particular charges. He was allowed, however, after a division, 
to reply by letter instead of in person. On the 30th of April, 
the " Confession and humble Submission of me, the Lord 
Chancellor," was delivered to the Lord Chief Justice, and read 
in the House. In this document, he says : " Descending 
into my own conscience, and calling my memory to account 
so far as I am able, I do plainly and ingenuously confess that 
I am guilty of corruption ; and do renounce all defence, and 
put myself upon the grace and mercy of your Lordships." He 
then deals with the particular charges, twenty-eight in num- 
ber, making, so far as we can judge, a full and candid state- 
ment of his exact degree of guilt in each case. Most of the 
presents had been received after the causes had been decided 
and without any antecedent promise, but some had undoubtedly 



BACON'S LIFE. 21 



been madependente lite. The latter might properly be regarded 
as bribes ; the former, though not, properly speaking, bribes, 
savoured unpleasantly of corruption. There is undoubtedly a 
difference between making a present to a judge while a case is 
pending and after it has been determined, and, in the some- 
what analogous case of elections to the House of Commons, 
our present law tolerates many practices after an election 
which would be deemed corrupt while the election is proceeding. 
But the practice of receiving presents from successful suitors, 
to say nothing of the advantage which it would give to the 
rich, would soon lead to express or tacit understandings be- 
tween the judge and the parties to the suit, and so would come 
to be bribery in another and perhaps a more dangerous form. 
It is superfluous to say that any judge at the present day, who 
accepted a gift from a successful suitor after the termination 
of the suit, an almost incredible supposition, would, if dis- 
covered, never be permitted to execute his office again. But, 
in Bacon's time, the stream of English justice did not run so 
pure as it does now, and even the ethical theory generally 
prevalent on these subjects was probably very different from 
what it is amongst us. As he himself says, the taking of 
gifts by persons in high places w r as one of the abuses of the 
time, one of the vitia temporis rather thaa the vltia hominis. 
Bacon, of course, ought to have been superior to the temptation 
and to have set in his practice an example which, no doubt, 
his unbiassed intellect would have sternly dictated in theory. 
But, unfortunately, he was always in want of money. He 
seems never to have recovered from the embarrassment caused 
by the narrow circumstances in which he was accidentally left 
by his father, and his expenditure, including the interest on 
his loans, appears to have been almost invariably in excess of 
his income. This circumstance may explain, though it does not 
excuse, the weakness to which he yielded. That weakness, 



22 BACON. 



even if we admit his own statement (and I can see no reason 
why we should not) that he had never allowed any bribe or 
reward to influence his decisions, I should not hesitate to call a 
crime. But at the same time I cannot but think that it is a 
crime for which, when we take into consideration the habits 
and sentiments of the age, posterity has exacted far too severe 
a penalty. 

The Lords, of course, after Bacon's own confession, had no 
alternative but to find him guilty. The verdict was agreed 
to unanimously. But as to the sentence there was much 
difference of opinion. What may be called the Court party, 
including the prince and Buckingham, advocated the more 
lenient course, while what may be called the popular party 
was in favour of severity. The sentence at last agreed upon 
was that he should pay 40,000/. as fine and ransom, that he 
should be imprisoned in the Tower during the king's pleasure, 
that he should be for ever incapable of holding any office, 
place, or emolument in the State or Commonwealth, and that 
he should never sit again in Parliament or come within the 
verge of the Court. The Lord Admiral, that is, Buckingham, 
is alone entered as dissentient. The sentence was delivered 
with all due solemnity in presence of the Commons, but Bacon 
himself was absent on account of grievous sickness. However 
hard the sentence may have been in the particular instance, 
it at least had the good effect of stopping from that day 
forward all pecuniary transactions between judges and suitors. 

Bacon's committal to the Tower was for a time deferred by 
his sickness, but, to satisfy the Lords, some of whom were 
beginning to be impatient for the execution of their sentence, 
he was actually imprisoned for about a couple of nights. The 
fine was never exacted, and indeed, being the first charge on 
his estate, served to protect him from other creditors. In 
accordance with that clause of the sentence which banished 



BACON'S LIFE. 23 



him from the verge of the Court, he retired to Gorhambury 
on the 23rd of June. He was now at leisure, unwelcome as 
was the form in which that leisure had come, to devote him- 
self to his favourite studies and to develope his cherished idea 
of an instauration of the sciences. And to this work he seems 
to have intended henceforth mainly to give his time, but, 
from the loss of official income, he was now sore pressed by 
pecuniary cares. In his embarrassment, he turned naturally 
and rightfully enough to the king, on whom he had many 
claims, and, probably by way of showing his readiness to 
undertake work which James would appreciate, he composed, 
during the Long Vacation of 1621, his History of Henry the 
Seventh. The king had already assigned his fine to trustees 
named by himself for his own benefit, but what Bacon required 
was some positive assistance. This, however, <6 the times 
being as they were," was not forthcoming, and the only help 
which could be obtained from the king was a warrant, dated 
November 14, 1622, recommending him to the favourable 
consideration of his creditors. In this document, the kinjr, 
who " much commiserates the estate of the Lord of St. Alban," 
regrets that the times are not " such as we might free him at 
once by our liberality. " The prohibition to come within the 
verge of the Court had been removed by royal warrant in the 
spring of this year, so that the only disabilities under which 
Bacon now laboured were his exclusion from Parliament and 
from office. It may be mentioned that a limited pardon, the 
important exception being that of the Parliamentary sentence, 
appears to have been sealed by the king in November, 1021. 
But the history of this pardon is attended with some ob- 
scurity. 

After completing the History of Henry the Seventh, Bacon 
seems to have turned his attention to the preparation for the 
press, in an enlarged form and in a Latin version, of the 



24 BACON. 



Advancement of Learning, which, under the new title of Be 
Augmentis Scientiarum, appeared in October, 1623. This work 
was now designed to serve for the first part of the Instanratio 
Magna, as the Novum Organum served for the second. The trans- 
lation into Latin seems to have been made by several hands, 
though under Bacon's own careful superintendence. On 
presenting a copy of the History of Henry the Seventh to the 
king, he offered to prepare a digest of the Laws of England, 
and about the same time he appears to have begun another 
work, with which, however, he did not make much way,' 
the Holy War. This was to have been a discussion on the 
lawfulness and feasibility of a combined attack of the Christian 
powers on the Turk, an event which was at that time within 
the range of probabilities. Nor did Bacon's literary activity 
stop here. He was also busily engaged in preparing an in- 
stalment of a Natural and Experimental History, which was 
to supply the materials on which the inductive method was 
to work. For this part of his scheme he had invited assistance, 
but in vain, and hence, in the latter part of his life, he set to 
the task himself, complaining, however, that he was compelled 
to be a workman as well as an architect, having to ' ' dig the 
clay and burn the brick " as well as to design and construct 
the building. That he spent so much time in making these 
collections of real or supposed facts of nature is much to be 
regretted; for they are far the least valuable part of his 
writings, though they may have been of service in setting an 
example to others and giving a direction to this kind of 
inquiry. 

On the 20th of January, 1622-3, Bacon was brought by 
Buckingham to kiss the king's hand, and for a time there 
seemed to be a gleam of better fortune. It was even rumoured 
that he was to be made President of the Council, and he 
might possibly have been appointed to the Provostship of 



BACON'S LIFE. 25 



Eton, for which he applied, had not the place been already 
promised. Meanwhile, his pecuniary difficulties continued, 
and he made an ineffectual attempt to dispose of Gorhambury 
to Bucking-ham. He also retired from Bedford House to his 
old lodgings in Gray's Inn, "for quiet and the better to hold 
out." Though not able to make his voice heard in Parliament, 
there can be no doubt that he heartily approved of breaking 
off the marriage treaty with Spain, the great event of the 
year 1623, and that he was one of those who were eager that 
the country should undertake a war for the recovery of the 
Palatinate. 

On the 27th of March, 1625, James died, and Bacon might 
reasonably have hoped, at the beginning of a new reign and 
under a prince who had always showed himself favourably 
disposed to him, to receive at least a full pardon, if not 
some alleviation of his financial embarrassments. But the 
king and Buckingham soon found that they had troubles enough 
of their own, and apparently they lacked either the time, or 
the inclination, or the courage to lend a helping hand to their 
former adviser. In this year, the third and complete edition 
of the Essays was published, and the design of the Great 
Instauration was no doubt being filled in as rapidly as its 
author could write, the Natural History being now the part 
of it which mainly claimed his attention. 

Though Bacon had long been in weak health, aggravated, 
probably, by his misfortunes, his end came suddenly and un- 
expectedly. One day, at the end of March, 1C26, he was 
driving towards Highgate, when, there having been a fall of 
snow, the idea occurred to him to try whether snow would 
have the same effect as salt in arresting putrefaction. He 
alighted at a cottage, as the story goes, obtained a hen, and 
helped, with his own hands, to stuff it with snow. The expe- 
riment caused a sudden chill, which forced him to take refuge 



26 BACON. 



at a house of Lord Arundel's lying on the road. His letter to 
Lord Arundel, excusing his having thus made a convenience 
of his house, betrays no apprehension of death, but the chill 
appears soon to have developed into what we should now call 
bronchitis, and Bacon died early in the morning of Easter 
Sunday, April 9, 1626. 

We can hardly regard his death as premature. His life's 
work was finished. Even had he been recalled to office, it was 
now probably impossible for any man, however wise and 
patriotic, to heal the sores of the country without the inter- 
vention of a civil war. And the Great Instauration had been 
sufficiently sketched and exemplified to afford to coming 
generations most of the help that, in the then existing condi- 
tion of science, it was likely to do. It is true that Bacon, 
had he lived longer, might have written more Essays or 
Histories, or executed a digest of the Laws, but, absorbed as 
he was in plans for the subjugation of Nature, it was hardly 
probable that he would employ his time on what he would 
regard as merely literary or legal pursuits. 

In this slight sketch of Bacon's life, I have confined myself 
almost entirely to a bare statement of facts. My business 
is with the character, tendencies, and results of his philosophy, 
and not with the disputed passages of his life. But I cannot 
refrain from expressing an opinion that his memory has most 
unfortunately and unjustly suffered from the apparent contrast 
between his life and his works having so easily lent itself to 
the artifices of epigram . From Pope's famous couplet, 2 written 

2 " If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined, 
The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind." 

Essay on Man, Ep. iv, 
Pope's next couplet,— 



BACON'S LIFE. 27 



probably with little reflection and certainly with little know- 
ledge, and from the rhetorical periods of Macaulay, which 
seem as if they had been written with Pope's lines ringing- all 
the time in his ears, most Englishmen of this generation and 
the last seem to have been content to take on trust their 
estimate of one of the most illustrious of their countrymen 
and of mankind. Mr. Spedding has recently done much to 
remove these misapprehensions, and no one ought now to 
venture to pronounce an opinion on Bacon's character who 
has not at least acquainted himself with the shorter of Mr. 
Spedding's works. 3 On one count of the indictment, of 
course, judgment must, on his own confession, be entered 
against him, namely, that he was guilty of corruption in his 
office of Chancellor. But to be guilty of corruption and to be 
guilty of perversion of justice are two widely different things, 
likely as the one doubtless is to lead to the other. An 
apophthegm of Bacon's own, probably imparted in confidence 
to his intimate friends in his later years, may be taken, per- 
haps, as expressing the whole truth with regard to these sad 
transactions. " I was the justest judge that was in England 
these fifty years. But it was the justest censure in Parliament 
that was these two hundred years." 

Carelessness about money, as already noticed, was probably 
the root from which all Bacon's errors and misfortunes sprang. 
And the want of money led him to seek preferment more 

''Or ravisli'd with the whistling of a name, 
See Cromwell, damn'd to everlasting fame," 

has now lost its point. When Bacon's history and character are as well 
and as generally known as Cromwell's now are, posterity will perhaps be 
as little inclined to repeat with approbation the former couplet as the 
latter. 

3 An Account of the Life and Times of Francis Bacon. London, 
Tiubner and Co., 1878. 



28 BACON. 



openly and more keenly than we, in these days, when we are 
more given to mask our ambitions, should regard as consis- 
tent with dignity. But he was anything rather than "mean.-' 
On the other hand, he was generous, open-hearted, affectionate, 
peculiarly sensitive to kindnesses, and equally forgetful of 
injuries. The epithet of " great," which has been so ungrudg- 
ingly accorded to him as a writer, might, without any singular 
impropriety, be applied to him also as a man. The story of 
his life, it must be confessed, is not altogether what the 
reader of his works would have desired, but the contrast has 
been so exaggerated as to amount to a serious and injurious 
misrepresentation. 



29 



CHAPTER II. 

bacon's works. 

Bacon's Works may be divided into three classes, the Philoso- 
phical Works, which form far the largest portion, the Literary- 
Works, and the Professional Works. Many of these are mere 
fragments or short essays, afterwards thrown aside and re- 
placed by other essays, also unfinished, or by the larger and 
more complete works as known to the general reader. All 
that remains of Bacon's writings, however brief or fragmen- 
tary, has been collected in Ellis and Spedding's Edition, and 
sometimes, as in the elaboration of his new logical method or 
Novum Organum, it is interesting to trace the history of an 
idea through several successive papers written at different 
periods of his life. But, in attempting a general account 
of Bacon's literary activity, which is all that I aim at in 
the present chapter, to enumerate all his various writings, 
much more to endeavour to determine their mutual relations, 
would be merely to tax the patience of the reader to no pur- 
pose. I shall, therefore, for the most part, confine myself to 
noticing the more important and matured works, only men- 
tioning the slighter or more unfinished writings where some- 
thing of special interest attaches to them. 

\ The principal and best known of the philosophical works 
are the Advancement of Learning, which was published in 
English in 1G05, the Novum Organum, which was pub- 



3 o BACON. 



lished in Latin in 1620, and the Be Augmetitis Scientiarum 
which was published in Latin in 1623. The last of these 
works may be regarded as a much enlarged edition of the first, 
though The Twoo BooJces of Francis Bacon of the Broficience 
and Advancement of Learning Divine and Humane have a 
certain advantage over their larger and more pretentious 
rival from being presented in a more compendious form and in 
the noble and flowing periods of their author's English instead 
of in a foreign tongue or a translation. James the First had 
ascended the throne of England in 1603, and Bacon, who was 
anxious to stand well with him as well as to interest him in 
his schemes for the reformation of science, appears to have 
hurried on the composition of the Advancement of Learning 
for the purpose of making an "oblation," as he calls it, 
to the new king. Hence the marks of haste and incomplete- 
ness which may be detected in the Second Book, that which 
treats of the deficiencies to be supplied in the present stock of 
knowledge. In the Be Angmentis this one book was ex- 
panded into no less than eight. The first book is far more 
finished in style, and more complete in matter. It seems to 
have been written in the year 1603, immediately after James' 
accession, and treats of the dignity of learning and " the ex- 
cellency of the merit and true glory in the augmentation and 
propagation thereof." A prince, who was himself learned and 
interested in learning, might, so Bacon thought, do much to 
help in the accumulation of those materials and the pro- 
vision of that co-operation which were necessary to the re- 
novation of the sciences. But James was himself too much 
embarrassed in his finances during the greater part of his 
reign, to become a second Alexander, had he even believed 
sufficiently in Bacon's design to be willing to assume that 
character. 

When Bacon wrote the Advancement of Learning, he does 



BACON'S WORKS. 31 

not seem to have had any idea of constituting it a part 
of the Great Insfauration, but, as time went on, he appears 
to have thought that the attempt to build up a new philosophy 
might fittingly be preceded by a review of the present state 
of knowledge. Hence, in the JDistributio Operis, which is 
prefixed to the Novum Organum, the first place in the 
Great Instauratiou is assigned to what he calls " Parti- 
tiones Scientiarum," or " a summary or general description ot 
the knowledge which the human race at present possesses," 
including, however, " not only things already invented and 
known, but likewise things omitted which ought to be there." 
Thus, the Be Augme?itis, or expanded edition of the Advance- 
ment of Learning y instead of being a mere preparatory tract, 
was designed to become an integral part of the great work. 
And, though Bacon's weak health, lack of opportunity, and 
personal misfortunes prevented him from executing his plan 
on the proportions which he had prescribed to himself, the 
book, even as it stands, must have had few readers who have 
not thought it worthy of the position which its authoi 
intended for it. 

Whether the additional matter was originally written in 
English or Latin, we do not know, but it is said, on the 
authority of Archbishop Tenison, that George Herbert, the 
poet, was one of the translators employed to convert the 
Advancement of Learning into Latin. The work was, however, 
carefully superintended by Bacon himself. " Proprio marte 
plurimum desudavit," as Dr. Rawley tells us. He had applied, 
some years before, for the assistance of one Dr. Playfer, of 
Cambridge, who, according to Tenison, sent him a specimen 
of his workmanship, but "of such superfine Latinity, that the 
Lord Bacon did not encourage him to labour further in that 
work, in the penning of which he desired not so much neat 
and polite, as clear, masculine and apt expression." The first 



32 BACON, 



English translation of this work was executed by Dr. Gilbert 
Wats or Watts of Oxford. It was severely criticized by 
Bacon's friends, and has since been replaced by others. To 
the student not sufficiently acquainted with Latin to read 
the original, the most serviceable version will now be found 
in the Fourth Yolume of Ellis and Spedding's Edition of 
Bacon's Works. 

The remaining parts of the Great Instauration, as enume- 
rated in the Distributio Operis or Plan of the Work, are : — 
(2) the "Novum Organum, or Indications Concerning the In- 
terpretation of Nature ;" (3) " Phenomena Universi, or a 
Natural and Experimental History for the Construction of Phi- 
losophy ;" (4) "Scala Intellectus, the Ladder of the Intellect ; " 
(5) " Prodromi, the Forerunners, or Anticipations of the New 
Philosophy •" (6) " P/iilosopkia Secunda, or Active Science." 

The second part, or the proper method of interpreting Na- 
ture, was evidently the one (if we except the sixth, which was 
to be the crown of the whole design and the gradual work of 
posterity) to which Bacon attached the greatest importance. 
It is mainly represented in the Novum Organum, though pre- 
liminary drafts of portions of this work, often curiously 
differing from it in detail, are to be found in parts of the 
Valerius Terminus, and in the Partis Secunclce Delineatio, 
the Cogitata et Visa, the Temporis Partus Masculus, and the 
Filum Labyrinthi sive. Inquisitio Legitima de Motu, »to say 
nothing of smaller pieces. Of these preliminary drafts of the 
Novum Organum, far the most interesting is the Cogitata et 
Visa, containing the substance of the First Book of the Novum 
Organum, and composed probably in the summer or autumn 
of 1607. A very beautiful manuscript of it, carefully cor- 
rected in Bacon's own handwriting, exists in the Library of 
Queen's College, Oxford, but the first printed edition, pub- 
lished, along with other minor works, by Isaac Gruter in 1653, 



BACON'S WORKS. 33 

is taken from another copy, now no longer extant. The compo- 
sition of the Novum Organum itself appears to have heen begun 
about 1608. For the first edition appeared in 1620, and Dr. 
Rawley (in the Life of Bacon, prefixed to the liesuscitat io) 
tells us that he had himself seen at least twelve copies of the 
work, u revised year by year, one after another ; and every 
year altered and amended in the frame thereof." This extreme 
care expended on its elaboration is apparent principally in the 
aphorisms of the First Book, which, in point of pithiness and. 
incisiveness of language, it would be difficult to surpass. 
When the first edition (which, by the way, is a very handsome 
folio volume) appeared, it was preceded by the piece beginning, 
"Franciscus de Verulamio sic cogitavit," a Dedication to the 
King, a Preface to the Instauratio Magna (of which, though 
only the second part, it was the first instalment), the Distributio 
Operis (that is, the plan of the whole Installation), and a Pre- 
face peculiar to itself. It was followed by a small tract, 
entitled Parasceue ad Historiam Naturalem et Exp>erimentalem, 
a Preparation to a Natural and Experimental History, printed, 
by anticipation, as a sort of specimen, or, possibly, resume of 
the last part but one of the Novum Organum, promised in 
book ii. ch. 21. Finally, the volume is closed by a Catalog us 
Historiarum Particularium secundum Capita, or List of Deside- 
rata in the specific Materials for Induction. 

The Novum Organum, in the shape in which its author 
left it, is only a fragment, though a very considerable frag- 
ment, of the larger work which Bacon contemplated under 
that title, as adequately representing the second part of the 
Great Instauration. The enumeration of the parts wanting 
will be found in book ii. aph. 21. Nevertheless, though 
only a fragment, the Novum Organum, and especially the 
First Book, is the most carefully written of all Bacon's philo- 
sophical works. Moreover, as describing the new method of 

D 



34 BACON. 



which the renovation of knowledge was to be the result, it is 
the keystone of the entire system. 

The Third Part of the Great Instatiration, the Phenomena 
Universi, was to contain a collection of arranged and sifted 
materials on which the method of induction was to work. Of 
this part, even according to Bacon's limited conception of the 
extent and variety of nature, we have only a very small 
portion, and, according to a juster estimate of the boundless 
extent of the " Phenomena Universi," that portion might 
almost be described as infinitesimal. Such as it is, however, 
it is contained mainly in the Historic/, Ventorum, the Historia 
Vita et Mortis } the Historia Bensi et Rari, and the Sylva Syl- 
varum. The first of these works, an attempt to collect and digest 
various facts in connexion with the winds; was published in 
November, 1622. It was to be followed at monthly intervals by 
other tracts containing similar collections, and the volume in 
which it was published comprises introductions to five other 
" histories," namely those of " the dense and the rare," " the 
heavy and the light,"" the sympathies and antipathies of things," 
" sulphur, mercury, and salt," " life and death." Bacon's pro- 
mise was only very inadequately fulfilled. The Historia Vitm et 
Mortis was published about the end of January, 1622-3. The 
Historia Bensi et Rari did not appear during Bacon's lifetime, 
and was first published in Dr. Rawley's Opuscula Varia Post- 
huma, in 1658. The three others were never composed in the 
form of separate treatises, though the subjects of which they 
were to treat occupy several sections of the Sylva Sylvarum. 
There are extant short or imperfect drafts of other treatises of the 
same kind, such as those on Sound, Light, the Magnet, &c. 

The last work on which Bacon was engaged was the 

Sylva Sylvarum? a miscellaneous collection of observations 

1 The name Sylva Sylvarum probably means, as Mr. Spedding suggests, 
a collection of collections. Mr. Ellis, on the other hand, takes it as a 



BACON'S WORKS. 35 

and experiments in Natural History. It was published 
by Dr. Rawley in 1027, the year after Bacon's death, 
but the preface was written by Rawley during 1 his life- 
time. This preface is of considerable interest, both as showing 
Bacon's conception of what a Natural History ought to be 
(he was fully conscious, it may be noticed, how far short his 
own performance came of his ideal), and as offering some 
excuse for what must be acknowledged to be the very crude 
and fanciful character of many of the " experiments " recorded 
in the work. "I have heard his lordship often say, that, if 
he should have served the glory of his own name, he had better 
not to have published this Natural History : for it may seem 
an indigested heap of particulars, and cannot have that lustre 
which books cast into methods have ; but that he resolved to 
prefer the good of men, and that which might best secure it, 
before anything that might have relation to himself/' u And 
I have heard his lordship speak complainingly, that his lord- 
ship (who thinketh he deserveth to be an architect in this 
building) should be forced to be a workman and a labourer, 
and to dig the clay and burn the brick : and more than that, 
according to the hard condition of the Israelites at the latter 
end, to gather the straw and stubble over all the fields to burn 
the bricks withal. For he knoweth that, except he do it, 
nothing will be done ; men are so set to despise the means of 
their own good." This book has furnished Bacon's critics, 
especially his German critics, Lasson and Liebig, with some 
of their most telling shafts. And to men of our generation 
nothing, it must be owned, can be more transparently absurd 
than such conceits as that " the blood-stone is good for them 
that bleed at the nose ;" than the " report " of " the writers of 
natural magic " that " the heart of an ape, worn near the heart, 

Hebraism for optima sylva, " sylva being used, as vkr) in Greek, for the 
materials out of which anything is to be constructed." 

D 2 



36 BACON. 



comforteth the heart and increaseth audacity/' " and that the 
same heart likewise of an ape, applied to the neck or head, 
helpeth the wit, and is good for the falling sickness/' than the 
statement that " there be divers sorts of bracelets fit to comfort 
the spirits, and they be of three intentions, refrigerant, cor- 
roborant, and aperient/' than the suggestion to " try the force 
of imagination upon staying the working of beer when the 
barm is put in, or upon the coming of butter or cheese, after 
the churning, or the rennet be put in /' than the notion that 
water is congealed into crystals, or that the moon influences 
terrestrial objects in four ways, by " drawing forth of heat/' 
by "inducing of putrefaction/' by " increase of moisture," and 
by " exciting of the motions of spirits." 2 But in reply to any 
argument based upon the occurrence in Bacon's writings of 
absurdities of this kind, which might be largely multiplied, it 
may be pleaded that these were the fancies of his age, from 
which probably no man of that time was altogether free. 
Amongst the early revivers of science, there seems to have 
been a peculiarly keen appetite for the marvellous. "In 
Bacon's time," as Mr. Ellis says, " and still more at an earlier 
period, men delighted in nothing more than in collections of 
remarkable facts ; the more marvellous, so they did not become 
altogether incredible, the better." And we have only to look into 
books like Sir Thomas Browne's Vulgar and Common Errors, 
or the various works of Joseph Glanville, to see how persistent 
such notions were even in the generation after Bacon's death. 
Moreover, a large number of these fancies may be grouped 
under the heads of " sympathy and antipathy," " force of 
imagination," &c, subjects on which peculiarly obscure ideas 
prevailed at this time. Lastly, defective and often ridiculous 
as this book is from our point of view, it is, if we refer it to 

2 See Experiments 967, 978, 961, 992, 364, 890—897. 



BACON'S WORKS. 37 

its place in the history of science, very far from being con-" 
temptible. It is probably the best and most complete single 
collection of the kind that, up to that time, had been pub- 
lished. 

Appended to the Sylva Sylvaram in Rawley's edition is the 
New Atlantis. This is deservedly one of the most popular of 
Bacon's works ; it bears the stamp of his genius as much, 
perhaps, as anything which he wrote ; and, lastly, it is credited, 
and I conceive justly so, with having, to a large extent, sug- 
gested the foundation and programme of our own Royal 
Society, if not of several foreign scientific associations as 
well. Its relation to the Sylva Sylvarum cannot be better 
described than in the language of Mr. Spedding : — " The New 
Atlantis seems to have been written in 1624, and, though not 
finished, to have been intended for publication as it stands. It 
was published accordingly by Dr. Rawley in 1627, at the end 
of the volume containing the Sylva Sylvarum ; for which 
place Bacon had himself designed it, the subjects of the two 
being so near akin ; the one representing his idea of what 
should be the end of the work which in the other he supposed 
himself to be beginning. For the story of Solomon's House 
is nothing more than a vision of the practical results 
which he anticipated from the study of natural history dili- 
gently and systematically carried on through successive 
generations." No student of Bacon or of scientific literature 
should omit to read this charming romance. It teems with 
hope and suggestion, and now, after an interval of more than 
two centuries and a half, a strange interest attaches to a com- 
parison of the " Riches of Solomon's House " with the inven- 
tions which have actually been accomplished since Bacon's 
time, or which, with our enlarged knowledge of what is 
possible, we may not unreasonably expect in the future. 

Amongst the Impetus P/iilosopkici which occupy the 



3 3 BACON, 



latter part of Gruter's volume are two small pieces entitled 
Scala Intellects sive Filum Labyrihthi, the Ladder of the 
Intellect or Thread of the Labyrinth, and Prodromi sive 
Anticipations Philosophic Semndce, Forerunners or Antici- 
pations of the Second Philosophy. These were intended as 
Prefaces to the fourth and fifth parts of the Instauratio 
respectively. Whether anything more relating to those parts 
is extant seems doubtful. 

" The sixth part of my work (to which the rest is simply 
ministerial) at length discloses and sets forth that body of 
philosophy itself which is developed and established by a 
legitimate, chaste, and severe course of inquiry such as has 
already been propounded. The completion, however, of this 
last part is a thing both above my strength and beyond my 
hopes. I expect to make a beginning of the work — a 
beginning, as I hope, not to be despised : the fortunes of the 
human race will give the issue — an issue, it may be, such as, 
in the present condition of things and of the minds of men, 
cannot easily be grasped or imagined. For the matter in 
hand is no mere felicity of speculation, but the real business 
and fortunes of the human race, and all power of operation/'' 
But, though Bacon hoped himself fittingly to inaugurate the 
work, we search in vain amongst his writings for any special 
treatise which can be referred to this head. Nor is this fact 
without its explanation. The Scientia Activa was to depend 
on the knowledge of " Forms/' but how far Bacon was from 
having attained to a knowledge of " Forms/' and how vague 
was the conception which he often attached to this term, will 
be only too familiar to the attentive student of the Novum 
Organwm. The story which he applies to the Alchemists 3 of 
the old man who bequeathed to his sons a piece of gold hidden 
in a vineyard applies also, in no small measure, to himself, 
3 Nov. Org., i. 85. 



BACON'S WORKS. 39 

He did not discover " Forms/' but lie did what was of far 
more value to posterity ; he recalled men to the observation 
of facts; gave an impulse to the study of nature, and, if not 
the founder of the Inductive Method, at least contributed 
more than any other man to its wider, more correct, and more 
fruitful employment. 

n y Of Bacon's literary, as distinct from his philosophical and 
professional, works, far the most popular and important are 
the Essays. These, in their earliest shape, formed part of a 
very small octavo volume, published in 1597, and were only 
ten in number. They were entitled : 1, Of Studie ; 2, Of 
Discourse; 3, Of Ceremonies and Respects; 4, Of Followers 
and Friends ; 5, Sutors (i. e. Suitors) ; 6, Of Expence ; 7, Of 
Regiment of Health ; 8, Of Honour and Reputation ; 9, Of Fac- 
tion; 10, Of Negotiating. All are very brief and condensed, 
and they are entirely devoid of illustration or ornament. In 
this shape, they were reprinted in 1598, 1604, and 1606. In 
1612, a new edition was brought out, with many alterations 
and additions. This edition contained forty essays. Finally, 
the book in its present form, and containing fifty-eight essays, 
was published in 1625, the year before Bacon's death. This 
greatly enlarged edition, which is entitled, " The Essay es or 
Counsels, Chill and Morall, of Francis Lo. Verulam, Viscount 
St. Alban, Newly Enlarged," may be regarded as a store- 
house of the practical wisdom gathered during its author's 
lifetime, a life singularly rich in opportunities for such 
accumulations. 

The title of Essays is probably taken from the Essais 

of Montaigne, 4 which first appeared at Bordeaux in 1580. 

Hallam says of these that they are the first writings in the 

French language u which a gentleman is ashamed not to have 

4 Montaigne is quoted by name in the first Essay. 



4 o BACON. 



read/'' A similar remark, if we confine ourselves to prose 
works, might be made of Bacon's Essays. They still retain 
their ground as classics, and, some time or other during his 
life, every educated Englishman is certain to read them. 
Perhaps also, excepting Shakespeare's plays, they furnish more 
quotations than any other work in the language. To attempt 
to describe the characteristics of a book so familiar would be 
no compliment to the reader. But it may not be superfluous 
to remark that the Essays are the most original of all Bacon's 
works, those which, in detail, he seems to have thought out 
most completely for himself, apart from books and collections 
of common-places. The last edition teems, indeed, with quota- 
tions and illustrations, but they are suggested by his own 
matter and do not suggest it. Though the Essays have the 
same title as the larger collection of Montaigne, the two works 
have little in common, except their rare power of exciting 
interest and the unmistakable mark of genius which is im- 
pressed on them both. On a few subjects, such as on Death, 
Friendship, Glory, Anger, Greatness, we are able to compare 
the two authors, when treating the same topics, but, for the 
most part, their paths are divergent. Bacon's reflections are 
more connected and condensed, and his style more weighty, 
then those of his French prototype. On the other hand, 
Montaigne is undoubtedly the more entertaining. Both 
authors seem to be thoroughly conversant with books, though 
the quotations and allusions of Montaigne seem to come to 
him more naturally than those of Bacon. The Englishman 
seems to know more of affairs ; the Frenchman of life. Those 
curious in literary history can also compare with the Essays 
the treatise Be la Sagesse, by Pierre Charron, first pub- 
lished in 1601, and the Prince (II Principe) of Machiavelli, 
which, having appeared so far back as 153% was already a 
well-known and standard book, when Bacon began the com* 



BACONS WORKS. 41 

position of the Essays. That Bacon was intimately acquainted 
with the Prince as, I suppose, were all educated statesmen 
of his time, there can be no doubt, but I cannot accede to the 
view, apparently entertained by Dr. Abbott, that Bacon 
derived his opinions on polity, much less on morality, from 
Machiavelli. Waiving" the questions as to the precise motives 
and the true interpretation of the maxims of Machiavelli, 
nothing* can well be more remote either from what is ordinarily 
understood by Machiavellism, or from some of the actual 
utterances of Machiavelli himself, when taken in their literal 
sense, than such passages as the following, expressing, as I 
believe, Bacon's genuine sentiments : " I take Goodness in 
this sense, the affecting of the weal of men, which is that the 
Grecians call Philanthropia. This of all virtues and dignities 
of the mind is the greatest; being the character of the 
Deity : and without it man is a busy, mischievous, wretched 
thing; no better than a kind of vermin." .... "The 
inclination to goodness is imprinted deeply in the nature of 
man ; insomuch that if it issue not towards men, it will take 
unto other living creatures ; as it is seen in the Turks, a cruel 
people, who nevertheless are kind to beasts, and give alms to 
dogs and birds." .... "The parts and signs of goodness 
are many. If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, 
it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no 
island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to 
them. If he be compassionate towards the afflictions ot 
others, it shows that his heart is like the noble tree that is 
wounded itself when it gives the balm. If he easily pardons 
and remits offences, it shows that his mind is planted above 
injuries ; so that he cannot be shot. If he be thankful for 
small benefits, it shows that he weighs men's minds, and not 
their trash. But above all, if he have St. Paul's perfection, 
that he would wish to be an anathema from Christ for the 



. 4 2 BACON. 



salvation of his brethren, it shows much of a divine nature, 
and a kind of conformity with Christ himself ! " 5 And again : 
" He that seeketh to be eminent amongst able men hath a 
great task; but that is ever good for the public. But he 
that plots to be the only figure amongst ciphers is the decay 
of a whole age. Honour hath three things in jt : the vantage 
ground to do good; the approach to kings and principal 
persons ; and the raising of a man's own fortunes. He that 
hath the best of these intentions, when he_aspireth, is an 
honest man ; and that prince that can discern of these inten- 
tions in another that aspireth, is a wise prince. Generally, 
let princes and states choose such ministers as are more 
sensible of duty than of rising ; and such as have business 
rather upon conscience than upon bravery [that is, vain glory 
or ostentation] ; and let them discern a busy nature from a 
willing mind ? " 6 Even in the Essay on " Wisdom for a 
Man's Self " (Essay 23), where, if anywhere, we should expect 
to find the influence of Machiavelli's teaching, had Bacon 
been so apt a disciple as Dr. Abbott supposes, what actually 
occur are such expressions as these : "Wisdom for a man's self 
is, in many branches thereof, a depraved thing. It is the 
wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house somewhat 
before it falls. It is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out 
the badger, who digged and made room for him. It is the 
wisdom of crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour,'" 
. . . . " An ant is a wise creature for itself, but it is a 
shrewd thing in an orchard or garden. And certainly men 
that are great lovers of themselves waste the public. Divide 
with reason between self-love and society ; and be so true to 
thyself as thou be not false to others, especially to thy king 
and country. It is a poor centre of a man's actions, himself. 

6 Essay 13. Of Goodness, and Goodness of Nature. 
6 Essay 36. Of Ambition. 



B A COX'S WORKS. 43 

It is right earth. For that only stands fast upon its own 
centre; whereas all things that have affinity with the heavens 
move upon the centre of another, which they benefit ! " 
Still more alien from a morality of mere self-seeking is the 
spirit of some of the passages in the I)e Augmentis. Take, for 
instance, the following : " If a man's mind be truly inflamed 
with charity, it raises .him to greater perfection than all the 
doctrines of morality can do ; which is but a sophist in com- 
parison with the other. Nay further, as Xenophon truly 
observed, ' that all other affections though they raise the 
mind, yet they distort and disorder it by their ecstasies and 
excesses, but only love at the same time exalts and composes 
it ; ; so all the other qualities which we admire in man, though 
they advance nature, are yet subject to excess; whereas 
charity alone admits of no excess. The Angels, aspiring to 
be like God in power, transgressed and fell : ' I will ascend, and 
be like unto the Most High/ Man, aspiring to be like God 
in knowledge, transgressed and fell : ( Ye shall be as gods, 
knowing good and evil/ But by aspiring to a similitude of 
God in goodness or love, neither angel or man ever trans- 
gressed or shall transgress; for unto that imitation we are 
called, ' Love your enemies, bless them which hate you, and 
pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you/ 
So in the first platform of the divine nature itself, the heathen 
religion speaks thus, ' Optimus Maximus/ but the Sacred 
Scriptures thus, ' His mercy is over all his works/ " 7 

It may indeed be said that, both in the Essays and elsewhere, 
there are many maxims teaching the art of self-advancement 
or of becoming, as Bacon phrases it, the Architect of Fortune. 
And why should there not be? It is only a common-place to 
say that the general good is, as a rule, best promoted by each 
man seeking his own individual good. A world, if we can 
7 De Augmentis, book vii. ch. 3. 



44 



BACON. 



conceive such a world, in which this was not the case, would 
present but a very poor parody even of the amount of happi- 
ness which is attainable under present circumstances. And, 
if this be so, why should not a moralist give rules for bettering 
one's own fortunes, providing, at least, that such rules are not 
likely to interfere with the general welfare ? There are many 
instances, undoubtedly, where a man ought to postpone his 
own interests to the good of his family, or of his neighbours, 
or of his country, or of mankind at large, and, unless men 
were in the habit of submitting, on occasion, to these acts of 
self-sacrifice, no society could long exist. But is Bacon less 
ready to acknowledge or to insist upon the importance of this 
fact than the great mass of writers on ethical questions ? His 
place is, surely, not with the small class of moralists, who, 
like Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Mandeville, appeal only, or 
mainly, to the selfish instincts of mankind, or to the inflections 
of a cool self-love, but with that far larger class who recognize 
Ybenevolent principles of action as co-ordinate with and often 
controlling those which merely regard ourselves. In the book 
where he most expressly treats the subject (De Augm. book vii.), 
he distinguishes between " Individual or Self-Good " and the 
** Good of Communion/' the " two natures of good an appetite 
towards which is formed and imprinted on everything," and 
he insists as emphatically as he can do on the superiority 
of the latter as the " more general form which controls and 
keeps in order the lesser appetites and inclinations." " It is 
much more happy," he presently goes on to say, " to fail in 
good and virtuous ends for the public, than to obtain all that 
we can wish to ourselves in our private fortune." And even 
where 8 he notes as deficient {' ' not but that it is used and 
practised even more than is fit, but it lias not been handled in 
books ") that part of knowledge which he calls the " Architect 
8 De Augmentis, book viii. ch. 2. 



BACON'S WORKS. 45 

of Fortune/' be adds the warning : " Not, however, that learn- 
ing admires or esteems this architecture of fortune otherwise 
than as an inferior work. For no man's fortune can be an end 
worthy of the gift of being that has been given him by God ; 
and often the worthiest men abandon their fortunes willingly, 
that they may have leisure for higher pursuits." Lastly, 
though he often cites Machiavelli, and deservedly, as I conceive, 
praises him for the excellence of his work within certain limits, 
he does not fail to speak of his " evil arts," and to condemn 
specifically such positions as these, — that men can only be 
wrought upon by fear, and that therefore a politic man should 
contrive to have every man surrounded by perils, or this " that 
virtue itself a man should not trouble himself to attain, but 
only the appearance thereof to the world, because the credit 
and reputation of virtue is a help, but the use of it an im- 
pediment." 

I have taken some pains to argue against Dr. Abbott's 
position, because I think it gives a wholly false idea of Bacon's 
attitude towards practical philosophy and the conduct of life, 
and I have selected this place, rather than the chapter on 
Bacon's philosophical opinions, for the criticism, because Dr. 
Abbott's remarks occur in his Introduction to the Essays, and 
are therefore most conveniently noticed, while speaking of that 
work. 
// The literary production which, during Bacon's life-time and 
for many years afterwards, ranked next in popularity and was 
regarded as next in importance to the Exxagx, was undoubtedly 
the I)e Saplentia Veterum, the treatise on the Wisdom of the 
Ancients. This was first published, in a small duodecimo 
volume, in 1G09. It has frequently been republished, and 
early translations of it exist in English and Italian. The plan 
of the work is to recite certain classical fables, or, as we should 
now call them, myths, disclosing, as it proceeds, the moral 



46 BACON. 



and physical lessons which are supposed to lie latent in them. 
The hypothesis on which the interpretations rest would fall 
in with the usual mode of thinking in the seventeenth century, 
and then, and even later, would doubtless find many adherents 
amongst the most learned and judicious men of the time; 
now it would hardly meet with a single believer, even amongst 
men of ordinary education. It is that, prior to the time of 
Homer, Hesiod, and the earliest extant Greek writers, there 
existed a period of high intellectual cultivation, in which the 
fables had been invented for the purpose of setting forth, in 
allegory, certain important truths, known to the ancient 
world, concerning nature and man. " Had they been certainly 
the production of that age," the age of Homer, Hesiod, and 
the . rest, " and of those authors by whose report they have 
come down to us, I should not have thought of looking for 
anything great or lofty from such a source. But it will appear 
upon our attentive examination that they are delivered not as 
new inventions then first published, but as stories already 
received and believed. Moreover, since they are told in different 
ways by writers nearly contemporaneous, it is easy to see that 
what all the versions have in common came from ancient 
tradition, while the parts in which they vary are the additions 
introduced by the several writers for embellishment— a circum- 
stance which gives them in my eyes a much higher value : 
for so they must be regarded as neither being the inventions 
nor belonging to the age of the poets themselves, but as sacred 
relics and gentle breezes blowing from better times, that were 
caught from the traditions of more ancient nations, and so 
received into the flutes and pipes of the Greeks." 9 To the 
student of the Novum Organum this way of thinking will be 
familiar. There Bacon constantly disparages the later Greeks, 

9 Preface to the De Sapientia Veterum. Mr. Spedding's translation, 
slightly altered. 



BACON 1 S WORKS. 47 

speaking", for instance, of Aristotle and Plato as the lighter 
planks, which had been floated down by the river of time, 
while the heavier and more solid materials of the older philo- 
sophies had sunk to the bottom. 1 This idea of a primeval 
wisdom which underlay the extant remains of antiquity was, 
as Mr. Spedding points out, by no means an unnatural or 
incredible fancy in Bacon's days. " When a new continent 
w r as first discovered, in which the savage inhabitants were 
found laden with golden ornaments, it was easy to believe in 
the rumours of El Dorado ; and when the buried fragments 
of Greek and Roman civilization were first brought up for the 
examination of a new age, they might easdy suggest to the 
imaginative a world of wonders still unrecovered. - " The dream 
has, of course, been entirely dissipated in recent times by the 
greatly improved methods of studying early history and early 
institutions, as well as by the new sciences of Comparative 
Mythology and Comparative Philology. An irresistible 
consensus of evidence now shows that the march of civilization 
has been onwards and not backwards ; that man has not fallen 
from the heights, but risen from the depths. And wherever 
we may look for the origin of the myths, whether in a " disease 
of language/'' or in the distorted stories of dead heroes and 
rival races, we no longer have any faith that we shall find in 
them a " hidden wisdom M unknown to later generations. 

Bacon's conception of the meaning of the classical fables, 
and the kind of interest which still attaches to the Be Sapu 
Vefenim, will best appear, if I give some examples of his treat- 
ment. I have selected two, one conveying a moral, the other 
a physical lesson. 

NARCISSUS; 

OR SELF-LOVE. 

" Narcissus is said to have been a young man of wonderful 
' Nov Org., book i. aphs. 71, 77. 



4 8 BACON. 



beauty, but intolerably proud, fastidious, and disdainful. 
Pleased with himself and despising all others, he led a solitary 
life in the woods and hunting-grounds; with a few companions 
to whom he was all in all ; followed also, wherever he went, 
by a nymph called Echo. Living thus, he came by chance 
one day to a clear fountain, and (being in the heat of noon ) 
lay d(,wn by it; when, beholding in the water his own image, 
he fell into such a study, and then into such a rapturous 
admiration of himself, that he could not be drawn away from 
gazing at the shadowy picture, but remained rooted on the 
spot till sense left him, and at last he was changed into the 
flower that bears his name ; a flower which appears in the early 
spring, and is sacred to the infernal deities, — Pluto, Proser- 
pine, and the Furies. 

" In this fable are represented the dispositions, and the 
fortunes too, of those persons who from consciousness either 
of beauty or some other gift with which nature unaided by 
any industry of their own has graced them, fall in love as it 
were with themselves. For with this state of mind there is 
commonly joined an indisposition to appear much in public or 
engage in business, because business would expose them to 
many neglects and scorns, by which their minds would be 
dejected and troubled. Therefore they commonly live a soli- 
tary, private, and shadowed life, with a small circle of chosen 
companions, all devoted admirers, who assent like an echo to 
everything they say, and entertain them with mouth -homage ; 
till, being by such habits gradually depraved and puffed up, 
and dazed at last w 7 ith self-admiration, they fall into such a 
sloth and listlessness that they grow utterly stupid, and lose 
all vigour and alacrity. And it was a beautiful thought to 
choose the flower of spring as an emblem of characters like 
this : characters which in the opening of their career flourish 
and acquire celebrity, but disappoint in maturity the promise 



BACON'S WORKS. 49 



of their youth. The fact, too, that this flower is sacred to the 
infernal deities contains an allusion to the same thing. For 
men of this disposition turn out utterly useless, and good for 
nothing whatever ; and anything that yields no fruit, but like 
the way of a ship in the sea passes and leaves no trace, was by 
the ancients held sacred to the shades and infernal gods/' 

DEUCALION; 

OR RESTORATION. 

"The poets relate that, when the inhabitants of the old 
world were utterly extinguished by the universal deluge, and 
none remained except Deucalion and Pyrrha, these two, 
being inflamed with a pious and noble desire to restore the 
human race, consulted the oracle and received answer to the 
following effect : They should have their wish, if they took 
their mother's bones and cast them behind their backs. This 
response struck them at first with great sorrow and despair ; for, 
the face of nature being laid level by the deluge, to seek for a 
sepulchre would be a task altogether endless. But at last they 
found that the stones of the earth (the earth being regarded 
as the mother of all things) were what the oracle meant. 

" This fable seems to disclose a secret of nature, and to correct 
an error which is familiar to the human mind. For man in 
his ignorance concludes that the renewal and restoration of 
things may be effected by means of their own corruption and 
remains, as the Phoenix rises out of her own ashes. But this 
is not the case : for matters of this kind have already reached 
the end of their course, and can give no further help towards 
a renewal of it; so that the only thing left is to go back to 
more common and general principles." 

The reader may, from these specimens, be tempted to make 
nearer acquaintance with the book itself, which, like all the 

E 



50 BACON. 



works on which Bacon expended much care, has at least the 
merits of brevity and point. Mr. Spedding rates it very 
highly. While acknowledging the entirely different point of 
view from which we now approach the study of the Greek 
myths, he says : " The interest which the book still possesses 
for us (and it has always been a great favourite with me) is of 
quite another kind ; nor has either change of times or increase 
of knowledge at all abated its freshness. It is an interest 
precisely of the same kind with that which in the Essays shows 
no symptoms of becoming obsolete. The interpretation of 
each fable is in fact an ' essay or counsel/ civil, moral, or philo- 
sophical ; embodying the results of Bacon's own thought and 
observation upon the nature of men and things, and replete with 
good sense of the best quality. ... I see no reason it should 
not be as great a favourite with modern readers and be found 
as amusing and instructive as the Essays are ; the matter 
being of as good quality, and the form not less attractive/'' 2 

Appended to the first edition of the Essays, was a fragment 
entitled Of the Colours of Good and Evil. Like the Essays 
and the De Sapientia Vetenwn,, it is full of shrewd remarks 
suggested by Bacon's knowledge of life and observations 
of human nature. It consists of a statement and examination 
(evidently intended merely as a specimen) of certain common- 
places on good and evil, "showing/' as he says, "in what 
cases they hold, and in what they deceive : which, as it can- 
not be done but out of a very universal knowledge of the 
nature of things, so, being performed, it so cleareth man's 
judgment and election as.it is the less apt to slide into any 
error." Thus, beginning with the old dictum, " That to 
which all other parties or sects agree in assigning the second 
place (each putting itself first) should be the best," he passes 
judgment on it as follows: " The fallax of this colour hap- 
2 Mr. Spedding's Preface to the De Sapientia Veterum. 



BACON'S WORKS. 



peneth oft in respect of envy j for men are accustomed after 
themselves and their own faction to incline unto them which 
are softest, and are least in their way, in despite and deroga- 
tion of them that hold them hardest to it. So that this colour 
of meliority and pre-eminence is a sign of enervation and 
weakness." These Colours of Good and Evil, with the addi- 
tion of two others, were afterwards embodied in the Sixtli 
Book of the Be Augmentis. Bacon there states that, when 
a young- man, he had collected many other " colours " or 
" popular signs" of Good and Evil, but, as he had not yet 
found time to illustrate or examine them, he refrained from 
setting" them out. These are contained in a manuscript in the 
British Museum, entitled Promus of Formularies and Elegancies, 
and a few specimens of them are given by Mr. Spedding, 
Bacon's Worjcs, vol. vii. pp. 67, 68. 

The Apophthegms New and Old were first published in De- 
cember, 1624, but the volume containing them is dated 162o. 
In the autumn of 1624 Bacon was recovering from a severe 
illness, and amused himself by dictating such Apophthegms 
as he could recall. These amount to 280 in number. The 
subsequent history of the various collections which went under 
the name of Bacon's Apophthegms, though highly curious, is 
too intricate, and not of sufficient importance to be recounted 
here. It will be found in Mr. Spedding's Preface to the 
Apophthegms.* Several additional Apophthegms have also 
been appended by him, taken from the second edition of the 
Besuscitatio, the Baconiana, and a Common-Place Book in the 
handwriting of Dr. Rawley, preserved at Lambeth. Many 
of these stories or sayings are witty or instructive enough, but, 
as to most well-read men the best of them an 1 probably already 
familiar, the collection may be disappointing to any one who, 
in mature life, consults it for the first time. Moreover, 
3 Bacon's Works, vol. vii. pp 113 — 120- 
E 2 



52 BACON. 



pointed sayings are much more effective in a setting, and, 
when presented alone, still more in a collection, are often apt 
to fall flat. The difference is something- like that ' between 
seeing antiquities in a museum or in the open field, or paint- 
ings in an old church or palace, with which they have been 
associated for ages, or in a modern picture-gallery. One de- 
rives much more amusement from two or three good stories 
told at a dinner-party, where the conversation leads Up to 
them, than from a whole volume of Ana. 

\Of the historical works (which, together with the religious 
orks, I include under the general head of Literary Works) , 
the only one of any size is the History of Henry the Seventh. 
This book, though the subject had long been familiar to Bacon, 
and a fragment on this and the four following reigns dates 
back as far as the time of Elizabeth, seems to have been 
wholly composed during the Long Vacation succeeding his fall. 
On the 8th of October, 1621, he was ready to send a fair manu- 
script to the king. This was returned shortly after the 7th 
of January, and on the 20th of March, 1621-2, the book was 
printed and ready for publication. For some inexplicable 
reason, a te stay" was interposed by Dr. George Mountain, or 
Monteigne, Bishop of London, the licenser, but this demur 
seems soon to have been withdrawn or overruled, for the book 
was out before the end of the month. A Latin Translation, 
made either by Bacon himself or under his direction, appeared 
in the Opera Moralia et Civilia, published by Dr. Rawley in 
1638. As to the merits of this work, opinions seem to differ 
widely amongst the few who have read it. Sir James Mackin- 
tosh, in his History of England, appears to regard Bacon as 
having simply set to work, in order to gratify James the First, 
to produce a flat tering portraiture of his royal ancestor. Those, 
however, who will take the trouble to read the book for them- 
selves, will be more likely to agree with Bacon himself, who, 



BACON'S WORKS. 53 

in his dedication to Prince Charles, says i " I have not flattered 
him, but took him to life as well as I could, sitting so far off, 
and having no better light." Had Bacon's object been simply 
to draw a flattering portraiture for the purpose of ingratiating 
himself with the reigning monarch, he would hardly, in deli- 
neating Henry's character, have employed such expressions as 
these : " he would be blinded now and then by human policy;" 
w justice was well administered in his time, save where the 
king was party;" " the less blood he drew, the more he took 
of treasure, aud, as some construed it, he was the more sparing 
in the one that he might be the more pressing in the other ;" 
"of nature assuredly he coveted to accumulate treasure, and 
was a little poor in admiring riches ;" " he kept a strait hand 
on his nobility, whieh made for his absoluteness but not for his 
safety, insomuch as I am persuaded it was one of the causes of 
his troublesome reign ;" " he was a dark prince and infinitely 
suspicious, and his times full of secret conspiracies and 
troubles ;" " he was indeed full of apprehensions and suspi- 
cions ;" " whether it were the shortness of his foresight, or the 
strength of his will, or the dazzling of his suspicions, or what 
it was, certain it is that the perpetual troubles of his fortunes 
(there being no more matter out of whieh they grew) could 
not have been without some great defects and main errors in 
his nature, customs, and proceedings, whieh he had enough to 
do to save and help with a thousand little industries and 
watches." 4 Ts or, if Sir James Mackintosh's theory be the true 
one, can we credit Bacon with much adroitness in telling the 
following story. " He was a prince, sad, serious, and lull of 
thoughts and secret observations; and full of notes and 

4 These quotations are taken from the character of Henry the Seventh, 
occurring at the end of the History. It must, of course, be understood 
that they arc the dark traits in a portrait which is, on the whole, that of 
a grand and beneficent personage. 



54 BACON. 



memorials of his own hand, especially touching persons ; as 
whom to employ, whom to reward, whom to inquire of, whom 
to beware of, what were the dependencies, what were the 
factions, and the like ; keeping (as it were) a journal of his 
thoughts. There is to this day a merry tale ; that his monkey 
(set on as it was thought by one of his chamber) tore his principal 
note-book all to pieces, when by chance it lay forth : whereat 
the court, which liked not those pensive accounts, was almost 
tickled with sport/' Mr. Spedding, who, from his knowledge 
of the history of the times as well as from the pains he has 
taken to trace to their sources all Bacon's writings, has a better 
title to be heard on this subject than any other authority, 
delivers this weighty judgment: "Though not one of his 
works which stand highest, either in reputation or popularity 
with later times, the History of Henry the Seventh has done 
its work more effectually perhaps than any of them. None 
of the histories which had been written before conveyed any 
idea either of the distinctive character of the man or the real 
business of his reign. Every histor}' which has been written 
since has derived all its light from this, and followed its guid- 
ance in every question of importance; and the additional 
materials which come to light from time to time, and enable 
us to make many corrections in the history of the events, only 
serve to confirm and illustrate the truth of its interpretation 
oftJiem." 5 

In the Second Book of the Advancement of Learning, Bacon 
notes, amongst the deficiencies in modern history, an account 
of the period of English History from the uniting of the Roses 
to the uniting of the Kingdoms ; " a portion of time wherein, 
to my understanding, there hath been the rarest varieties that 

5 Spedding's Account of the Life and Times of Francis Bacon, vol. ii. 
pp. 542, 543. See also the Preface to the History of Henry the Seventh, 
Bacon's Works, vol. vi. pp. 4, 5. 



BACON'S WORKS. 55 

in like number of successions of any hereditary monarchy hath 
been known." We have seen that, before the close of the 
reign of Elizabeth, he had already turned his own attention to 
this subject. Pressure of business, however, and the absorbing 
claims of the Great Ins tun rat ion had mostly diverted his atten- 
tion from it till the period of enforced leisure which succeeded 
his fall. He then rapidly composed the History of Henry the 
Seventh, the first reign of the series. Prince Charles, to whom 
this work was dedicated, urged him to proceed with his original 
plan, and to write a History of Henry the Eighth. Bacon 
appears somewhat reluctantly to have yielded, for the business 
would be a long one, and his heart was far more deeply engaged 
in philosophy than in history. Moreover, for some reason or 
other, Sir Robert Cotton began to show some reluctance to 
allowing him the continued use of his treasures. " I find Sir 
Robert Cotton/' he says, " who poured forth what he had in 
my former work, somewhat dainty of his materials in this." The 
opening paragraph is the only part of this projected writing 
which was ever executed. 

The piece entitled In Felicem Memoriam Elizaletha (On the 
Fortunate Memory of Elizabeth, Queen of England), though it 
can hardly be regarded as connected with the same design as 
the History of Henry the Seventh and the projected History of 
Henry the Eighth, falls within the same period. It seems 
to have beefi written in the summer of 1608, and was intended 
as an answer to the aspersions cast on Elizabeth's character 
and government by Roman Catholic pamphleteers. By way 
of reply to the Pope's description of her as " misera fcemina," 
Bacon enumerates the various particulars in which her life and 
government were to be regarded as remarkable for felicity. 
In a letter to Sir George Carcw, then Ambassador in France, 
he expresses a wish that the piece should be seen by the Pre- 
sident De Thou (Thuanus), "chiefly because I know not 



5 6 BACON. 



whether it may not serve him for some use in his story ." 
This eulogy may be viewed as an impartial and independent 
testimony to the worth and prudence of Elizabeth ; for Bacon 
had no special reason to be grateful to her, nor, at the time 
at which the piece was written, could he have served any per- 
sonal object by magnifying the events of her reign. 

Two other small pieces belong to the same series. One is 
a memorial of Henry Prince of Wales (In Henricum Prin- 
cipem Wallice Elogium Francisci Baconi), the eldest son of 
James, who died prematurely in 1612. It was first printed 
by Birch, in his edition of Bacon's works, 1763, from a manu- 
script in the British Museum. The other is a small fragment 
in English, entitled The Beginning of the History of Great 
Britain, giving an account of the accession of James the First 
to the Crown of England. It was first published in Rawley's 
Resnscitatio, 1657, and, according to Mr. Spedding, was 
probably composed at the end of 1609 or beginning of 1610. 
Mr. Spedding says of it : u As an account of the temper of 
men's minds at James's entrance, it is complete ; and in my 
judgment one -of the best things in its kind that Bacon ever 
wrote." 

Bacon's religious works, though they contain some of his 
finest sentiments, and are mostly written in his best style, 
might be contained in a very thin volume. The largest of 
them is the Meditationes Sacrce, first published, in the same 
volume with the Essays and the Colours of Good arid Evil, in 
1597. Amongst the most characteristic of the subjects there 
treated are " The Innocency of the Dove and the Wisdom of the 
Serpent," "The Exaltation of Charity," "Earthly Hope,""The 
Kinds of Imposture." The original is in Latin, but, in the re- 
print of the Essays in 1598, the Meditations appear in English, 
whether with or without Bacon's imprimatur we do not know. 
The other genuine works of this class are A Confession of 



BA COX'S WORKS. 57 

Faith, first published in the Remains in 1648, but written 
before (how long before we cannot determine) the Hummer 
of 1603; a Translation of certain Psalms into English" Verse, 
composed during his fit of sickness in 1021, which were dedi- 
cated to " his very good friend Mr. George Herbert," * and 
published in 1625 ; and three Prayers, one called by him The 
Student's Prayer, another called by him The Writer's Prayer, 
and a third composed, in the midst of his troubles, in the 
spring of 1621. Of this last prayer Addison (in the Toiler, 
No. 267) says that "For the elevation of thought and great- 
ness of expression, it seems rather the devotion of an angel 
than of a man." A fourth Prayer, described in the Remains 
as " made and used by the late Lord Chancellor," but not 
mentioned by either Rawley or Tenison, is of doubtful authen- 
ticity. Lastly, a piece entitled The Characters of a Believing 
Christian in Paradoxes and Seeming Contradictions, which was 
also published in the Remains, and has frequently been quoted 
as Bacon's under the short title of Christian Paradoxes, has 
now been shown by Mr. Alexander Grosart to have been 
written by another hand. It formed a portion of the second 
part of Herbert Palmer's Memorials of Godliness and Chris- 
tianity, and was first published by him in 164-5. 7 As I have 

6 As George Herbert is himself a man of famous memory, and the 
dedication is brief, I give it in lull : " To my very good friend Mr. 
George Herbert. The pains that it pleased you to take about some of my 
writings I cannot forget; which did put me in mind to dedicate to you 
this poor exercise of my sickness. Besides, it being my manner tcr 
dedications to choose those that I hold most fit for the argument, I 
thought that in respect of divinity and poesy met (whereof the one is the 
matter, the other the style of this little writing), I could not make better 
choice. So, with signification of my love and acknowledgment. I ever 
rest, " Your affectionate friend, 

" Fk. St. Auun." 

7 On the history of this extraordinary literary mistake (for Palmer's 
work went through no less than twelve editions within the next sixty- 



58 BACON. 



devoted a portion of a later chapter to discussing the character 
of Bacon's religious opinions, I need not dwell any longer on 
this division of his works. I may, however, say that no one 
can form any adequate opinion on the vexed question of 
Bacon's attitude towards religion and religious controversies, 
unless he takes into consideration the various passages bearing 
on these topics, which are scattered over his 'Essays and his 
philosophical writings. 

The professional works lie so much without the scope of my 
present concern with Bacon, that I shall hardly do more than 
notice them. A collection of all those which still possess any 
importance has been brought together and annotated by Mr. 
D. D. Heath in the seventh volume of Ellis and Spedding's 
edition of Bacon's works. The largest and most important 
of these are the treatises entitled Maxims of the Law, and the 
Heading on the Statute of Uses. The treatise entitled the Use of 
the Law is regarded by Mr. Heath as spurious. The Maxims of 
the Law were Bacon's contribution/'asheafandcluster of fruit," 
towards that Digest of the Laws of England which became at an 
early period of his life a favourite idea with him, and of which 
he never wholly lost sight. The dedication to Queen Elizabeth 
bears date January 8, 1596, but there are reasons for thinking 
that the body of the work was re-touched, and, in its present 
shape, belongs to a later period. The Reading on the Statute 
of Uses, Mr Heath says, " has perhaps received more attention 
than the Maxims. It has always been cited with respect, and 
was edited in 180-A, with notes far exceeding the text in length, 
by Mr. Rowe. It is however only a fragment of a course 

three years), see Mr. Spedding's Letters and Life of Bacon, vol. vi. 
pp. 129 — 131. Mr. Grosart's discovery appears in a book, printed for 
private circulation in 1864, entitled Lord Bacon not the author of the 
Christian Paradoxes. 



BACON'S WORKS. 59 

which Bacon was called upon to give in Gray's Inn as Double 
Reader in 1000." Of the Arguments of Lew , the one perhaps 
of most historical interest is that in the case of the Post-Nati 
of Scotland, delivered in the Exchequer Chamber before Easter 
Term, 1608, while Bacon was Solicitor-General. Another 
Argument of antiquarian, if not of historical, interest is that on 
the Jurisdiction of the Council of the Marches, propounded in 
the same year. What Mr. Heath finds "most striking-, both 
here and in the argument on the Writ liege Inconsulto, is the 
ease with which Bacon throws off the tone of the Minister of 
State and the courtier when he comes to argue before Common 
Law Judges." In connexion with the professional works, a 
conjecture of Mr. Spedding's 8 ought to be noticed. He sus- 
pects that all the corrected copies of Bacon's legal works, 
which he had selected for preservation, were lost altogether 
or have survived only in the rough drafts. 

It may be convenient to some of my readers, if I here say 
something of the various collections of Bacon's posthumous 
works, which appeared from time to time during the seven- 
teenth and eighteenth centuries. It will be recollected that 
the Essays, in three different forms, had come out respectively 
in 1597, 1612, and 1625, and that to the first of these editions 
was appended the Meditationes Sacra and the Colours of Good 
and Evil ; that the Advancement of Learning was published in 
1605 ; the De Sapient 'ia Veferum'm 1609 ; the Norton Organum 
in 1620 ; the History of Henry the Seventh, and the Ilistoria- 
Vcntorum in 1(522 ; the Ilistoria Vita et Mortis in 1623; the De 
Angmentis Scientiarum in October, 162o j and the Apophthegms 
and Translation of Certain Psalms in 1625. Excepting poli- 
tical pamphlets or state papers, such as the Declaration of (he 
Practices and Treasons attempted and committed by Robert, 
8 Letters and Life, vol. vii. p. 352 ; Life and Times, vol. ii. p. 622. 



6o BACON. 



late Earl of Essex (for which, however, he was not wholly 
responsible), Sir Francis Bacon, his Apology in certain imputa- 
tions concerning the late Earl of Essex, the Charge touching 
Duels, &c, these are all the works which were published 
during- Bacon's lifetime. In 1627, the year after his death, 
his chaplain, Dr. Rawley, brought out the Sj/lva Sylvarum, with 
the New Atlantis appended. All Bacon's more important 
works, and certainly all those by which he is now best known, 
had thus been published in 1627. But amongst his papers 
were found a number of speeches, letters, beginnings or first 
drafts of treatises, heads of advice, memoranda, &c, which served 
several successive editors for collections of miscellanies. The 
first of these collections was that contained in the small volume, 
published by Dr. Rawley in 1629, under the title of Certain 
Miscellany Works. It contains Considerations touching a War 
with Spain, the Advertisement touching a Holy War, An offer to 
the King of a Big est to be made of the Laws of England, and the 
short fragment on the History of the Reign of King Henry the 
Eighth. Comparing it with the parva naturalia of Aristotle, 
Dr. Rawley calls this collection the parva politica of Bacon. 
In 1638, Dr. Kawley published the Latin volume, entitled 
Opera Moralia et Civilia. This contains, in addition to re- 
prints of the Be Atigmentis, the Historia Ventorum, the Historia 
Vitcs et Mortis, and (with slight variations) the Be Sapient? a 
Veterum, translations of the History of Henry the Seventh, 
the Essays (latinised as Sermones Eideles site Lnteriora Rerum), 
the New Atlantis, and the Holy War. These translations, as 
well as the Be Sapientia Veterum, are described as, except in a 
few particulars, put into Latin by the author himself. 9 The 
next volume of Collections was published anonymously in 
1648, and was entitled " The Remains of Francis, Lord Verulam, 

9 Ah ipso Honoratissimo Auctore, prceterquam in paucis, Latinitate 
donatus. 



BACON'S WORKS. 6\ 

fyc, being 1 Essays and several Letters to several great person- 
ages, and other pieces of various and high concernment not here- 
tofore published." There is no preface, or any explanation of the 
principle of selection or of the sources from which the pieces 
had been brought together. It contains several letters, Bacon's 
opinion concerning the disposition of Sutton's charity (the 
Charterhouse estate), the Confession of Faith, the Christian 
Paradoxes, which, as we have seen, were by another hand, and 
the Prayer of doubtful authenticity, mentioned on p. 57. The 
authenticity of any document contained in this collection 
requires to be supported by independent testimony. 

In 1653 appeared a farmore important volume, that published 
in an elegant duodecimo at Amsterdam by Isaac Grater, and qh- 
tit]vd Fraud sci Baconi deVerulamio Script a inNaturali et Univer- 
sali Philosophia. It contains a large number of Bacon's smaller 
philosophical pieces, such as the Cog it af a et Visa, the Descrip- 
tio Globi Jniellectualis, the Scala Litellectus, Prodromi Philo- 
sophia Secundce, &c. It is divided into two parts, the latter 
of which is called Impetus Philosophici, but, so far as concerns 
the character of the pieces, there is no ground for the division. 1 
The reader may naturally ask, how came so important a 
collection to be first issued in Holland ? Sir Robert Rich and 
Mr. Thomas Meautys, two of Bacon's creditors, to whom letters 
of administration w T ere granted about fifteen months after his 
death, the executors named in his will having refused or 
delayed to assume their office, appear to have handed over 
these documents to a Mr. Bosville, to whom, together with Sir 
John Constable, who had married Bacon's wife's sister, the 
care of his papers had been bequeathed in his will. Most of 
Bacon's unpublished manuscripts had the good fortune to fall 
into the hands of Dr. Rawley, but these of which I am speak- 

1 The circumstances which probably led to this division are described 
by Mr. Spedding in the Preface to the Third Volume of Bacon's Works, 



62 BACON. 



ing, together with others which possibly were never published 
and may now have disappeared/ were sent over to Mr. Bosville 
(afterwards better known as Sir William Bos well), who, soon 
after Bacon's death, had become the agent of the English 
Government at the Hague. By Sir William Bos well these 
papers were handed - on to Isaac Gruter. If he was charged 
with their publication, the commission seems to have been only 
imperfectly performed. 

Another important collection of pieces was issued in 1657. 
This was a miscellaneous collection, edited by Rawley, under 
the title of " Resuscitatio, or bringing into public light several 
pieces of the works, civil, historical, philosophical, and theolo- 
gical, hitherto sleeping, of the Right Honourable Francis Bacon," 
&c. This volume contains Speeches, Letters, and several short 
treatises and discourses, chiefly of a political character. To it is 
prefixed a " Life of the Honourable Author," since frequently 
reprinted. In the Epistle to the Header, Dr. Rawley speaks 
of the "sundry corrupt and mangled editions" of Bacon's 
writings, 3 " whereby nothing hath been more difficult than to 
find the Lord St. Alban in the Lord St. Alban." New editions 
of the Resuscitatio were brought out in 1661 and 1671 respec- 
tively, both containing new matter, but Dr. Rawley, who died 
in 1667, is only responsible for the second edition. It maybe 
mentioned that, in this edition, some new sentences are in- 
troduced into the Life of the Author. The Resuscitatio is a 
collection of English pieces or translations only, but in 1658, 
the year following its publication, Rawley redeemed his 
promise of bringing out a small collection of Latin works, so 

2 They may, however, be included in the Resuscitatio and Opuscula 
of Rawley. See Preface to the Third Volume of Ellis and Spedding's 
Bacon, pp. 8, 9. 

8 Rawley was probably alluding specially to the Remains and to the 
letters contained in the Cabala and Scrinia Sacra. 



BACON'S WORKS. 63 

as not " to leave to a future hand anything- of moment and 
communicable to the public." This collection is entitled 
Ojmscula Varla Posihuma, Philosophica, Civilia, et Theologica, 
Francisci Baconi, &c. To it is prefixed a Latin translation 
of the Life. The principal contents are the Ilisloria Densi et 
Bari, the Historia Soni et Audit us, and the In Felt con Memo- 
riam Elizabeth®. It also includes several small pieces, such as 
the Inquisilio de Magnete and the Imago Civilis Julii Ccesaris. 

Thomas Tenison, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, who 
had access to Rawley's papers after his death, 4 published in 107 9, 
a small volume entitled " Baconiana, or certain genuine re- 
mains of Sir Francis Bacon," &c. This volume contains, by way 
of introduction, an " account of all the Lord Bacon's works " 
of considerable interest to the bibliographer. The charges 
against the Earl and Countess of Somerset are here first printed 
in an authentic form, and the admirers of Bacon had reason 
to be grateful to Tenison for rescuing from oblivion several 
charming pieces, such as the Student's Prayer and the Writer's 
Prayer in English, and the letters to the University of Cam- 
bridge and Trinity College on presenting them with copies of 
his books. 

A collection of Bacon's unpublished letters, written during 
the reign of James the First, was published by Robert Stephens 
in 1702. A second volume, also collected by him, was pub- 
lished in 1734. In addition to letters, this latter volume con- 
tains several tracts and fragments, the most important, perhaps, 
of which is the Bedargulio P/iilosop/tiarum, only a small portion 
of which had been published by Grater in 1G5 -J. Finally, 
another collection of unpublished Letters, Speeches, &c, was 
issued by Dr. Thomas Birch in 1763. These, with some addi- 

4 At some time or other, Tenison himself became possessed of these 
papers, and they are now in the Archicpiscopal Library at Lambeth, 



64 BACON. 



tions, occupy the sixth volume of the old ten-volume edition 
of Bacon's works. 

None of Bacon's legal works were published during his life- 
time. In 1630 appeared, in pamphlet form, " The Elements of 
the Common Laws of 'England, branched into a double tract, by 
the late Sir Francis Bacon, Knight/' &c The first of these 
tracts was the Maxims of the Common Law, the second the 
Use of the Common Lata. The latter tract, it has already 
been stated, Mr. Heath regards as spurious. The Beading on 
the Statute of Uses was first published, in a very incorrect form, 
in 1642. Three Speeches concerning the Post-Nati of Scot- 
land, the Naturalization of the Scotch in England, and the 
Union of the Laws of the kingdoms of England and Scotland, 
were first published in 1641. The Four Arguments on Im- 
peachment of Waste, Lowe's case of Tenures, the case of 
Revocation of Uses, and the Jurisdiction of the Council of 
the Marches, first appeared in Blackbourne's edition of Bacon's 
entire works, published in 1730. Bacon's argument in Chud- 
leigh's case has been recovered by Mr. Spedding. 

The first edition, professing to be complete, of Bacon's 
works, issued in England, was that of Blackbourne, in 1730. 5 
"What long served as the trade edition was a reprint of the 
edition put out by Birch in 1763. A handsome, but ill-arranged, 
edition, under the superintendence of Mr. Basil Montagu, was 
issued by Pickering between 1825 and 1836. The appearance 
of this edition was the occasion of Macaulay's Essay. The 
splendid and carefully annotated edition of Ellis, Spedding, 
and Heath, in seven volumes, was brought out by Longmans 

5 Collections of Bacon's Works, which professed to be, or might be 
regarded as, Opera Omnia, had been published, before the end of the 
eighteenth century, at Frankfort-on-the-Main, Amsterdam, and Leipsic. 
So far as letters, speeches, and miscellaneous fragments are concerned, all 
these were necessarily very imperfect. 



BACON'S WORKS. 65 

in 1857 and following years. No one, who wishes to study 
Bacon's works as a whole, can now dispense with its assistance. 
Mr. Spedding has incorporated the letters and occasional works 
of Bacon in another work, occupying seven volumes, entitled 
Letters and Life of Bacon, Longmans, 1861 and following 
years. This work will be found to be an invaluable acquisi- 
tion to the student of history, not only as regards the life of 
Bacon but the events of his period generally. The substance 
of it, omitting most of the letters but retaining the greater 
part of the biography, has recently appeared under the title of 
The Life and Times of Francis Bacon, 2 vols., Trubner and 
Co., 1878. 

Of Bacon's separate works, the most recent edition of the 
Advancement of Learning is that of Mr. Aldis Wright, and 
of the Novum Organum my own, both issued by the Clarendon 
Press at Oxford. Amongst recent editions of the Essays are 
those of Archbishop Whately, Mr. Aldis Wright, and Dr. 
Abbott. The Clarendon Press is shortly about to issue a a 
edition, annotated by Mr. J. R. Thursfield. 



66 BACON. 



CHAPTER III. 

OF THE SCIENCES. 

The divisions, existing* condition, and deficiencies of the 
sciences are the subject of three of Bacon's works, — namely, 
the Advancement of Learning , published in 1605, the Be Aug- 
mentis Scientiarum, published in 1623, and the Descriptio Globi 
Intettectualis, which, though written about 1612, was first 
published by Gruter in 1653. 2 For the purposes of this 
chapter, it will be sufficient to confine our attention to the 
second of these treatises, Of its relation to the first I have 
already spoken. The third, though curious, as expressing (in 
conjunction with the Thema Coeli, which really forms part of 
the same work) the opinions entertained by Bacon on the dis- 
puted questions of astronomy almost immediately after the 
publication of Galileo's Syderus Nuncius, is of too fragmentary 
a character to claim any of the space at my disposal. 

The first book of the Be Augmentis is, with some variations, 
a translation into Latin of the first book of the Advancement of 
Learning, already described, and need not detain us. The 
distribution of the Sciences {Partiones Scientiarum), the sub- 
ject of the first part of the Great Instauration, properly begins 

1 Quaintly called by Bacon his " perambulation." 

2 A few chapters of the curious but interesting fragment Valerius 
Terminus bear on the same subject, but they are too slight to be mentioned 
by the side of the other treatises. 



BACON'S SURVEY OF THE SCIENCES. 67 

with the second book. As his basis of division, Bacon takes 
"the three faculties of the rational soul " (or, as he calls them 
in the Ailranccment of Learning, "the three parts of man's 
understanding* "). "History has reference to the Memory, 
poesy to the Imagination, and philosophy to the Reason. And 
by poesy here I mean - nothing" else than feigned history, or 
fables ; for verse is but a character of style." " History is 
properly concerned with individuals, which are circumscribed 
by place and time. For though Natural History may seem to 
deal with species, yet this is only because of the general re- 
semblance which in most cases natural objects of the same 
species bear to one another ; so that when you know one, you 
know all." ,s Poesy, in the sense in which I have defined the 
word, is also concerned with individuals; that* is, with indivi- 
duals invented in imitation of those which are the subject of 
true history. There is, however, this difference that Poesy 
frequently exceeds the measure of nature, joining at pleasure 
things which in nature would never have come together, 
introducing things which in nature would never have come to 
pass; just as Painting likewise does. This is the work of 
Imagination." " Philosophy discards individuals j neither 
does it deal with the impressions immediately received from 
them, but with notions abstracted from those impressions : in 
the composition and division whereof according to the law of 
nature and the evidence of fact its business lies. And this is 
the office and work of Reason." "That these things are so, 
may be easily seen by observing the beginnings of the intel- 
lectual process. The sense, which is the door of the intellect, 
is affected by individual objects only. The images of those 
individuals — that is, the impressions received by the sense — 
are fixed in the memory, and pass into it, in the Bret instance, 
entire as it were, just as they occur. These the human mind 
proceeds to review and ruminate on; and, thereupon, either 

F 2 



6S BACON. 



simply rehearses them, or makes fanciful imitations of them, 
or analyses and classifies them. Wherefore from these three 
fountains, Memory, Imagination, and Reason, flow these three 
emanations, History, Poesy, and Philosophy; and there can 
be no others. For I consider history and experience to be the 
same thing", as also philosophy and the sciences." 

So far the division has only been one of human learning. 
But, when we examine the contents of divine learning, we shall 
find that the same division is applicable to them. " Nor do I 
think that any other division is wanted for Theology. The 
information derived from revelation and the information derived 
from the sense differ no doubt both in the matter and in the 
mode of conveyance ; but the human mind is the same, and its 
repositories and cells the same. It is only as if different liquids 
were poured through different funnels into one and the same 
vessel. Theology therefore consists either of Sacred History, or 
of Parables, which are a divine poesy, or of Doctrines and Pre- 
cepts, which are a perennial philosophy. For as for that part 
which seems supernumerary, namely, Prophecy, it is but a kind 
of history : for divine history has this prerogative over human, 
that the narration may be before the event, as well as after." 3 

The principal subdivisions, according to Bacon's scheme, are 
these. History is either Natural or Civil, Natural History 
treating of the works of Nature, Civil History of the works of 
Man. Civil History includes Literary and Ecclesiastical 
History, as well as the history of states, though in the Ad- 
vancement of Learning the two former are made separate 
divisions. Natural History is divided into the history of 
generations, in which nature follows her ordinary course of 
developement, of praeter-generations, that is of monsters or 

3 De Augmentis, book ii. ch. 1. In my quotations throughout this 
chapter, I have adopted, with slight variations, the translation pub- 
lished in Ellis and Spedding's edition of Bacon's Works, vols. iv. and v. 



£ A COATS SURVEY OF THE SCIENCES. 6g 



portents, and of arts, !>}' which nature is " put in constraint, 
moulded, and made as it were new by the hand of man.'" "Of 
these the first treats of the Freedom of Nature, the second of 
her Errors, the third of her Bonds. " " And I am the more 
indited," adds Bacon, putting forward one of his most charac- 
teristic tenets, " to set down the History of the Arts as a 
species of Natural History, because an opinion has long been 
prevalent, that art is something different from nature, and 
things artificial different from things natural ; whence this evil 
has arisen, that most writers of Natur.d History think they 
have done enough when they have given an account of animals 
or plants or minerals, omitting altogether the experiments of 
mechanical arts." 4 The Appendices to Civil History, which re- 
cord the works of men as history itself records their actions, are 
Orations, Letters, and Apophthegms. The second principal part 
of learning, or Poesy, which is feigned history, is divided into 
Poesy Narrative, Dramatic, and Parabolical. "Narrative Poesy 
is a mere imitation of History, such as might pass for readonly 
that it commonly exaggerates things beyond probability. Dra- 
matic Poesy is as History made visible; for it represents actions 
as if they were present, whereas History represents them as past. 
Parabolical Poesy " (which, as he says afterwards, is of a higher 
character than the others, and appears to be something sacred 
and venerable) " is typical history, by which ideas that are ob- 
jects of the intellect are represented in forms that are objects of 
the sense." 5 "The object of philosophy is threefold — God, 
Nature, and Man ; as there are likewise three kinds of rays — 
direct, refracted, and reflected. For nature strikes the under- 
standing with a ray direct; God, by reason of the unequal 
medium (namely, his creatures), with a ray refracted; man, as 
shown and exhibited to himself, with a ray rellccted." These 
three branches of philosophy, however, all meet in one trunk, 

4 Book ii. ch. 2. * Book ii. ch. 13. 



;o BACON, 



the Philosophia Prima, which is, as it were, the common 
parent of the particular sciences, embodying those axioms an J 
discussing those problems which are not peculiar to any one 
science but find their place in all knowledge alike. 6 

te That knowledge, or rather glimmering of knowledge, con- 
cerning God, which may be obtained by the light of nature and 
the contemplation of his creatures," is called Natural Theology. 
The second part of Philosophy, or Natural Philosophy, is 
divided into Speculation, or the inquiry into causes, and 
Operation, or the production of effects. Speculative Philoso- 
phy, again, is divided into Physic, which is concerned with 
material and efficient causes, that is, the materials out of which 
and the agents by which effects are produced, and Metaphysic, 
which is concerned with final and formal causes, or the ulti- 
mate purposes which things subserve and that innermost 
constitution or essence from which the other properties of an 
object or quality are derived. The operative doctrine con- 
cerning nature admits likewise of two divisions : Mechanic 
corresponding with Physic, and Magic corresponding with 
Metaphysic. Mechanic depends on a knowledge of the efficient 
and material causes, Magic on a knowledge of the Form. 
" For the inquisition of Final Causes is barren, and, like a 
virgin consecrated to God, produces nothing. " To know the 
ends which an object subserves does not enable us to produce 
it. A knowledge of the material and efficient causes does 
indeed often enable us to bring about mechanical effects. 
" But they who devote themselves to these studies, do but 
creep as it were along the shore " premendo litus iniquum," 
hugging the coast." There is a surer and more far-reaching 
mode of operation, Bacon conceived, than any now in use. It t 
is to ascertain the ultimate circumstance or circumstances on 

6 Book iii. ch. i. I have described and discussed Bacon's conception 
of Primary Philosophy in ch. 5, pp. 175 — 178. 



BACON'S SURVEY OF THE SCIENCES. 71 

which all the others depend, and then by duly disposing the 
former to produce the latter. Thus, to take Bacon's own in- 
stance from the second book of the Novum Organum, if heat be 
a certain kind of motion amongst the minute particles of a body, 
the surest and most effectual mode of producing heat will be 
to initiate this motion. To operations of this kind, depending 
on a knowledge of the Form, he appropriates the term Magic. 
u It seems to me that there can hardly be discovered any radi- 
cal or fundamental alterations and innovations of nature, either 
by accidents, or the trial of experiments, or even from the light 
of physical causes; but only by the discovery of Forms. If 
then I have set down that part of metaphysic which treats of 
forms as deficient, it must follow that I do the like of natural 
magic, which has relation thereunto. But I must here stipu- 
late that magic, which has long been used in a bad sense, be 
again restored to its ancient and honourable meaning. For 
among the Persians 7 magic was taken for a sublime wisdom 
and the knowledge of the universal consents of things ; and 
so the three kings who came from the east to worship Christ 
were called by the name of Magi. Now I understand it as 
the science which applies the knowledge of hidden Forms to 
the production of wonderful operations; and, by uniting, as 
they say, actives with passives, displays the wondrous works 
of nature." 8 Mathematic (which is divided into Pure and 
Mixed) is the great appendix and auxiliary to Natural Philo- 
sophy, whether speculative or operative. Bacon is aware that 
"the received," that is the Aristotelian, arrangement re- 

7 This remark is in accordance with Bacon's idoa that a profound 
wisdom, now lost, existed in the ancient world. See last chapter, 
pp. 46, 47. 

8 Book iii. ch. 5. On Bacon's conception of Forms, the importance 
which he attached to their discovery, and the practical bearings of his 
doctrine, I shall speak at length in ch. 4. See pp. 107 — 119. 



72 BACON. 



cognizes Mathematics as a branch of speculative philosophy 
co-ordinate with Plrysics and Metaphysics. But he thinks it 
necessary to represent it as only the handmaid of the other 
two, " by reason of the daintiness and pride of mathematicians, 
who will needs have this science almost domineer over Physic" 
st For it has come to pass, I know not how, that Mathematic and 
Logic, which ought to be but the handmaids of Physic, never- 
theless presume on the strength of the certainty which they 
possess to exercise dominion over it/' 9 

No less than five books of the De Avgmentis (Books iv. — 
viii.) are devoted to "the doctrine concerning Man/' or what 
we should now call Anthropology, in the widest sense of that 
term. i( This has two parts ; for it considers man either segre- 
gate, or congregate and in society/' The one is called the 
Philosophy of Humanity or Human Philosophy, the other 
Civil Philosophy. " The Philosophy of Humanity consists of 
parts similar to those of which man consists ; that is, of sciences 
which respect the body, and of sciences which respect the mind, 
besides comprehending one general science concerning the 
nature and state of man or concerning those things which are 
common as well to the body as the soul/' " The doctrine con- 
cerning man's body receives the same division as the good of 
man's body to which it is subservient. The goods of man's 
body are four ; Health, Beauty, Strength, Pleasure. The 
sciences therefore are in number the same ; Medicine, Cosmetic, 
Athletic, and Voluptuary, which Tacitus calls 'eruditusluxus/ 
educated luxury." The doctrine concerning the human Soul 
(in which we must distinguish between the Rational Soul, 
which is divine, and the Sensible or Produced Soul, which is 
common with brutes/) is concerned either with the Substance 

9 Book hi. ch. 6. 

1 For Bacon's distinction between these two kinds of soul and other 
matters connected with his Psychology, see ch. 5, pp. 161 — 168. 



BACON'S SURVEY OF THE SCIENCES. 73 

and Faculties of the Soul or with the Use and Objects of the 
Faculties, the hitter doctrine being divisible into Logic and 
Ethic. Logic is taken in a wide sense, as including* the arts 
of Invention, Judgment, Retention, and Tradition. These, 
again, are subdivided, as, for instance, the art of Invention into 
the discovery of Arts and the discovery of Arguments. Ethic 
or moral knowledge is divided into " two principal doctrines : 
the one the Exemplar or Platform of Good, the other the 
Regiment or Culture of the Mind ; the one describing the 
nature of good, the other prescribing rules how to accommo- 
date the will of man thereunto." Civil Philosophy, the second 
great division of " the doctrine concerning Man/' " has three 
parts, according to the three summary actions of Society : the 
knowledge of conversation, the knowledge of negotiation, and 
the knowledge of empire or government. For there are three 
kinds of good, which men seek to acquire for themselves from 
civil society : comfort against solitude, assistance in business, 
and protection against injuries. And there are these three 
wisdoms of divers natures, which are often found separate : 
wisdom in conversation or behaviour, wisdom in business, and 
wisdom in state." 2 The science of Universal Justice or the 
Fountains of Equity falls under the last of these three divi- 
sions, but is noted as deficient. 

The few paragraphs which constitute the last or ninth book 
refer to the study of Theology, that is Sacred or Inspired Theo- 
logy, as distinct from Natural Theology, which is regarded as a 
branch of philosophy. Bacon does not attempt any further 
division of this subject than that which he had suggested, as 
parallel to the division of Human Learning, at the beginning of 
Book ii. But he proposes three Appendices, relating however 
"not to the matter concerning which theology gives or shall 
give information, but only to the manner in which the informa- 

- Book viii. eh. 1. 



74 BACON. 



tion is or may be imparted." These are the legitimate use of the 
human reason in matters of religion, the limits of toleration 
•within the church, and the interpretation of the Scriptures by 
means of annotations on particular texts (fancifully called " the 
Emanations of the Scriptures"), all of which he notes as deficient. 

Such are the main outlines of Bacon's Partitions of the 
Sciences. Faulty as this classification is both in the principle 
on which it is constructed and in many of its particulars, he 
deserves great credit for having attempted, on independent 
grounds, to frame a new chart of knowledge adequate to the 
existing and what he conceived might not unreasonably be 
looked forward to as the prospective state of learning. Even 
if the map were not altogether accurate, it might, with its 
comparatively full details, still serve the purpose of suggesting 
new voyages of discovery, and of indicating to each band of 
explorers the light to be gained from the study of other depart- 
ments of knowledge. 3 Man's acquaintance with the intel- 
lectual, like his acquaintance with the material, world had 
grown vastly since the days of Aristotle and the Stoics. Why 
should he still be confined to their meagre enumerations of the 
sciences ? The two commonly received systems of distribution 
were those of the Peripatetics and the Stoics. The Peripatetics, 

3 " At the period when Bacon wrote, it was of much more consequence 
to exhibit to the learned a comprehensive sketch than an accurate survey of 
the intellectual world ; such a sketch as, by pointing out to those, whose 
views had been hitherto confined within the limits of particular regions, 
the relative positions and bearings of their respective districts, as parts of 
one great whole, might invite them all, for the common benefit, to a 
reciprocal exchange of their local riches. The societies or academies 
which, soon afterwards, sprung up in different countries of Europe, for the 
avowed purpose of contributing to the general mass of information by the 
collection of insulated facts, conjectures, and queries, afford sufficient 
proof that the anticipations of Bacon were not, in this instance, altogether 
chimerical." — Dugald Stewart's Dissertation, Preface. 



BACON'S SURVEY OF THE SCIENCES. 75 

following Aristotle in their main division and in their two first 
subdivisions, but supplying the third subdivision themselves, 
had classified the departments of knowledge as speculative 
(detDfnjTifcaL) , practical (TrpaKTiKai), and artistic or productive 
(it t7)7i k at) : subdividing speculative knowledge into physic, 
math ema tic, and theology (or, as the highest grade of know- 
ledge was variously called, metaphysic or the first philosophy) ; 
practical knowledge into ethic, ceconomic, and politic; and 
artistic, constructive, or creative knowledge (TroirjTifcrj) into 
dialectic or logic, rhetoric, and poetic. Mathematic was also 
commonly divided into arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and 
harmonics (music), the quadrivium of the mediaeval universities. 
The Stoics proposed what was apparently a simpler division in 
their threefold scheme of Logic (which was made to include 
grammar and rhetoric), Ethics, and Physics (including Theo- 
logy). This division corresponds with the one proposed by 
Locke in the last chapter of the Essay on the Hitman Under* 
standing. Bacon's scheme, however open it may be to criti- 
cism, at least prepared the way, by the copious details into 
which it entered, for a thorough discussion of the relations 
subsisting between the various sciences as well as for discover- 
ing the deficiencies which remained to be supplied in them. 

It is a great historical testimony to the excellence of Bacon's- 
classification that, with comparatively slight alterations, it was 
adopted by D'Alembert in his Preliminary Discourse to the 
French Eneyclopedie. Amongst the principal changes which 
it there assumed may be enumerated the following. The places- 
of Imagination and Reason, Poetry and Philosophy, a re reversed> 
so that, in the scheme of the Encyclopedic, Poetry comes last; 
the Imagination being regarded by D'Alembert as a more 
mature faculty (he is, of course, speaking of the creative not of 
the merely re-productive Imagination) than the Reason, and 
posterior to it in the order of developement. Revealed Theology > 



7 6 BACON. 



instead of being- treated as co-ordinate with and distinct from 
Human Learning", is included under that part of Philosophy 
which is concerned with the knowledge of God, Natural Theo- 
logy and the Science of evil spirits being the co-ordinate 
branches. Metaphysic is used in no less than three senses. 
In one sense, it is General Metaphysic, that is ontology or the 
Science of Being in general,— of Possibility, Existence, Dura- 
tion, &c. In this sense, it stands at the head of Philosophy, 
and has a certain affinity to the Philosophia Prima of Bacon. 
In another sense, it is employed as the equivalent of Pneuma- 
tology, or the science of souls as distinct from bodies, and in 
this sense is called Particular Metaphysic. Finally, there is a 
metaphysic of bodies, or general physic, which treats of extent, 
movement, impenetrability, &c, or the properties common to 
all bodies. Mathematics is made one of the main divisions of 
the Philosophy of Nature, instead of a mere appendix, and 
the mathematical as well as the physical sciences are much 
more elaborately divided than in Bacon's classification. The 
various medical sciences, or those which have to do with the 
care of man's body, are classified on a more scientific basis, and 
transferred from the Philosophy of Man to the Philosophy of 
Nature. Morals, are divided into general and particular : 
general ethics being concerned with discussions on the nature 
of good and evil, on the necessity of being virtuous, &c. ; par- 
ticular ethics with the special duties of the individual when 
regarded alone, of man in the family, and of man in society, 
denominated respectively Natural, Economical, and Political 
Jurisprudence, a similar division being applicable to the con- 
duct of states. Poesy is not confined to Poetry proper, but is 
.made co-extensive with the Fine Arts in general. Notwith- 
standing, however, these numerous divergences, the points of 
agreement between the schemes of Bacon and D'Alembert seem 
to me to be much more important than those of difference. But 



BACON'S SURVEY OF THE SCIENCES. 77 

it was not only in the classification of the sciences, that the 
Encyclopedists were indebted to Bacon. To him they owed 
their conception of the whole work, and Diderot and D'Alem- 
bert are never weary of acknowledging the obligation. "If 

we emerge from this vast operation," wrote Diderot in the 
Prospectus, " we shall owe it mainly to the chancellor Bacon, 
who sketched the plan of an universal dictionary of sciences 
and arts at a time when there were not, so to speax, cither arts 
or sciences. This extraordinary genius, when it was impossible 
to write a history of what men already knew, wrote one of 
that which they had to learn/' " No more striking panegyric 
has ever been passed/' says Mr. Morley, 4 " upon our immortal 
countryman than is to be found in the Preliminary Discourse. 
The French Encyclopaedia was the direct fruit of Bacon's 
magnificent conceptions." 

The radical fault in Bacon's classification of the sciences 
arises from his adopting a distinction between the so-called 
faculties as the basis of his division. It is awkward, to begin 
with, to make Memory include perception and the trained 
habit of observation. Then, Imagination has to be taken in 
a special sense, as a combining and creative faculty, while 
Reason must be made to include processes like Abstraction and 
Generalisation. But, apart from these objections, it is plain, 
on a little consideration, that all these mental acts are so im- 
plicated in every intellectual process of any length or complex- 
ity, that it is impossible definitely or even approximate!}' to 
assign one subject to the domain of one faculty and another to 
that of another. Thus, in Civil History, we not only have to 
try to reproduce the facts as they occurred (which part of the 
work Bacon would have assigned to Memory), but we must 
often follow long trains of reasoning and imagine various 
complications of circumstances in order to account for the 
4 Diderot, by John Morley, vol. i. p. 116. 



7 8 BACON. 



sequence of events or the motives of those who were actors in 
them. And it is superfluous to remark that we can neither 
infer a single conclusion nor combine any two ideas, without 
the intervention of memory. Difficult as it is to frame any 
rules on such a subject, it may be laid down with confidence 
that the principles of classification ought to be sought in the 
nature of the Sciences themselves, and not in the intellectual 
acts by which we apprehend or develope them. 

When we come to criticize Bacon's scheme in details, we are 
especially struck, from our present stand-point, with the clumsy 
device of constituting Appendices ; with the difficulty he experi- 
ences in properly co-ordinating mathematical with physical 
science ; with the inclusion of the doctrine concerning the Body 
of Man (comprehending, as it does, Medicine and Anatomy) 
under the head of Human rather than of Natural Philosophy, 
thereby co-ordinating it not with thephysical but with the moral 
sciences ; with the peculiar province assigned to Metaphysic ; 
and, lastly, not to multiply examples, with the vague and inade- 
quate divisions of Physics. It must be recollected, however, 
that Bacon was acting, in this field, as a pioneer, and we ought 
rather to be grateful to him for the work which he achieved 
and the example which he set than nicely to estimate his errors 
and defects. 

Of more recent attempts to classify the various departments 
of human knowledge, it would be out of place here to offer any 
detailed account. Every philosopher who is possessed with 
the ambition of framing a complete system of philosophy must 
either accept such a classification ready-made (an alternative 
the choice of which would argue considerable modesty), or try 
to construct one for himself. The efforts' of Hegel, Comte, and 
. Herbert Spencer, in this direction, will be familiar to many of 
my readers. Hegel's classification is to be found in the elabo- 
rate work, entitled Encyklojpixdie der Pkilosop/iise/ten Wissen- 



BACON'S SURVEY OF THE SCIENCES. ;g 

schqften, a brief account of which is given by Mr. Wallace in 
his article on Hegel in the Encyclopedia Britannioa. The 
Synoptical Table of Comte occurs in the first volume of the 
P/tilosojjhie Positive, and is explained and justified in the 
second lecture contained in the same volume. Mr. Herbert 
Spencer proposes a new classification, based on the distinction 
of Abstract and Concrete (to which, however, he adds a third 
division, the Abstract-Concrete), in an Essay on the Classifi- 
cation of the Sciences, contained in the third volume of his 
Essays and also published separately. Mr. Bain criticizes this 
and other schemes in one of the Appendices to his Bed act ice 
Logic, stating his own views in the Introduction to the same 
work. J. S. Mill, who, with certain important reservations, 
approves Comte's classification, has examined this subject at 
considerable length in his work on Auguste Comte and Positiv- 
ism (pp. 33 — G7). Comte's design, could it be successfully 
executed, would no doubt be of great advantage to the student. 
It is no less than to classify the various sciences (or rather the 
abstract or fundamental sciences, for the concrete sciences, like 
botany and zoology, are regarded as not yet formed, but only 
teuding to formation) according to the varying degrees of 
complexity in their phenomena; so that each science depends 
on a knowledge of the preceding, while adding fresh data of 
its own. Guided by this principle, M. Comte arranges the 
abstract or fundamental sciences in the following hierarchical 
order : 1st, Mathematics, its ascending stages being Arithme- 
tic, Geometry, Mechanics; 2nd, Astronomy (or the applica- 
tions of the Law of Gravitation) ; 3rd, Physics, its departments 
being Baiology or the science of w r eight, Thermology or the 
science of heat, Acoustics, Optics, and Eleetrology, of which 
Barology must come first, and Electrology last, the phi' 
the others being more doubtful; 4th, Chemistry, divided into 
inorganic and organic ; 5th, Physiology or Biology ; Cth, Socio- 



8o BACON, 



logy or Social Physics, the study of man in society, implying 
the determination of what constitutes personal and domestic as 
well as social morality. In addition to the concrete sciences, 
such as Meteorology, Geology, Mineralogy, Botany, and Zoo- 
logy, the student will miss from the above list Logic, Psycho- 
logy, and Theology, Amissions which are not accidental but inti- 
mately connected with Comte's views on the nature and order 
of knowledge. The divisions of Art and Literature, as well as 
of the practical applications of Science, lie altogether outside 
the scheme. Of these classifications generally, it ma}' be said 
that, useful as is the attempt to construct them and to adapt 
them to the existing state of knowledge, they are never able 
altogether to justify themselves against hostile criticism. But 
this is as we might expect. As the art of discovering grows 
with discoveries, 6 so the art of classifying grows with the 
knowledge to be classified, and, consequently, neither the one 
nor the other can ever be regarded as perfect or complete. 

Little has yet been said of what is perhaps the most interest- 
ing feature in the Advancement of Learning and the Be Aug- 
mentis Scientiarum, namely, the waste spots which Bacon notes 
in the various fields of knowledge, as cultivated in his time. 
The remainder of this chapter will be occupied with examples 
of such "deficiencies,"" but they must be regarded as specimens 
only, and by no means exhaustive. 

Speaking of the want of " a complete and universal History 
of Learning,'" and promising to set forth its argument, its 
method of construction, and its use, he says of the former : — 

" The argument is no other than to inquire and collect out ■ 
of the records of all time in what ages and regions of the 

5 Another science which is omitted, or rather rejected, by Comte, though 
its omission does not appear on the face of his classification, is Political 
Economy. 

6 Nov. Org., book i. aph. 130. 



BACON'S SURVEY OF THE SCIENCES. 81 

world what particular kinds of learning" and arts have 
flourished; their antiquities, their progresses, their migrations 
(for sciences migrate like nations) over the different parts of 
the globe; and again their decays, disappearances, and revivals. 
The occasion and origin of the invention of each art should 
likewise be observed ; the manner and system of transmission, 
and the plan and order of study and practice. To these should 
be added a history of the sects, and the principal controversies 
in which learned men have been engaged, the calumnies to which 
they have been exposed, the praises and honours by which 
they have been rewarded ; an account of the principal authors, 
books, schools, successions, academies, societies, colleges, 
orders, — in a word, everything which relates to the state of 
learning. Above all things (for this is the ornament and life 
of Civil History), I wish events to be coupled with their 
causes. I mean, that an account should be given of the 
characters of the several regions and peoples; their natural 
disposition, whether apt and suited to the different kinds of 
learning, or inapt and unsuited to them ; the accidents of the 
times, whether adverse or propitious to science ; the emulations 
and infusions of different religions; the enmity or partiality 
of laws ; the eminent virtues and services of individual per- 
sons in the promotion of learning, and the like. Now all this 
I would have handled in a historical way, not wasting time, 
after the manner of critics, in praise and blame, but simply 
narrating the fact historically, with but slight intermixture of 
private judgment." When speaking of the use of such a 
history, he makes the profound remark : " For the works of 
St. Ambrose or St. Augustine will not make so wise a bishop 
or divine as a diligent examination and study of Ecclesiastical 
History; and the History of Learning would be of like 
service to learned men." 7 

7 De Augm. book ii. ch. 4 

a 



82 BACON. 



Another desideratum, curiously included under the head of 
History, is a history of mechanical arts. "But, if my judg- 
ment be of any weight, the use of History Mechanical is, of 
all others, the most radical and fundamental towards natural 
philosophy; such natural philosophy 1 mean as shall not 
vanish in the fumes of subtle or sublime speculations, but such 
as shall be operative to relieve the inconveniences of man's 
estate. For it will not only be of immediate benefit, by 
connecting various experiences and transferring the obser- 
vations of one art to the use of others, and thereby dis- 
covering new commodities, a result which must needs follow 
when the experience of different arts shall fall under the 
observation and consideration of one man's mind; but further, 
it will afford a more powerful illumination for the investigation 
of the causes of things and for constructing the axioms, of the 
arts, than has hitherto shone upon mankind. For like as a 
man's disposition is never well-known or proved till he be 
crossed, nor Proteus ever changed shapes till he was straitened 
and held fast; so nature exhibits herself more clearly under 
the trials and vexations of art than when left to herself." 8 In 
a subsequent place, 9 he proposes a catalogue of inventions, or 
" Inventory of the Possessions of Man," " in order that those 
who address themselves to the discovery of new inventions 
may not waste their pains upon things already discovered and 
extant." " This inventory," he adds, " will be more work- 
manlike and more serviceable too, if I add to it a list of those 
things which are in common opinion reputed impossible in 
every kind, noting, in connexion with each, what thing 
already exists which comes nearest in degree to that impossi- 
bility ; that by the one human invention may be stimulated, 
and by the other it may be to a certain extent directed ; and 

» Book ii. ch. 2. » Book iii. ch. 5. 



BACONS SURVEY OF THE SCIENCES. 83 

that so by these optatives and potentials actives may be the 
more readily deduced." 

One branch of Physiognomy is wanting. " For Aristotle 
has very ingeniously and diligently handled the structure of 
the body when at rest, but the structure of the body when in 
motion (that is the gestures of the bod)) he has omitted ; 
which nevertheless are equally within the observations of art, 
and are of greater use. For the lineaments of the body dis- 
close the dispositions and inclinations of the mind in general ; 
but the motions and gestures of the countenance and the divers 
parts do not only so, but disclose likewise the seasons of access, 
and the present humour and state of the mind and will." l 

The need of a Comparative Anatomy (which, however, seems 
to be limited to human anatomy) is thus noted : " Likewise 
in anatomical inquiries, those things which pertain to man's 
body in general are most diligently observed, even to curiosity 
and in the minutest particulars; but touching the varieties 
which are found in different bodies, the diligence of physicians 
falls short. And therefore I say that Simple Anatomy is 
handled most lucidly, but that Comparative Anatomy is Want- 
ing. For men inquire well of the several parts, and their 
consistences, figures, and collocations ; but the diversities of 
the figure and condition of those parts in different men they 
observe not. Meanwhile there is no question but that the 
figure and structure of the inward parts is but little inferior 
in variety and lineaments to the outward; and that the hearts 
or livers or stomachs of men differ as much as their foreheads 
or noses or ears." A passage so remarkable on vivisection 
occurs in this connexion, that I should hardly be justified in 
omitting to direct attention to it, though I must by no means 
be supposed to cite it with approval. "Of that other defect 
in anatomy (that it has not been practised on live bodies) 
1 Book iv. cb. 1. 
G 2 



84 BACON. 



what need to speak ? For it is a thing hateful and inhuman, 
and has been justly reproved by Celsus. But yet it is no less 
true (as was anciently noted) that many of the more subtle 
passages, pores, and perforations appear not in anatomical 
dissections, because they are closed and latent in dead bodies, 
though they be open and conspicuous in live ones. Where- 
fore, that utility may be considered as well as humanity, the 
anatomy of the living subject is not to be relinquished alto- 
gether, nor referred (as it was by Celsus) to the casual practices 
of surgery ; since it may be well discharged by the dissection 
of beasts alive, which,notvvithstanding the dissimilitude of their 
parts to human, may, if judiciously performed and interpreted, 
sufficiently satisfy this inquiry:" 2 

Amongst the most far-seeing and possibly fertile of Bacon's 
suggestions for the reformation of science are those in which 
he advocates a closer union between formal and physical 
astronomy, and proposes (a most important idea), instead of 
divorcing, to Jfanect the study of celestial with that of 
terrestrial phenomena. " Astronomy offers to the human 
intellect a victim like that which Prometheus offered in deceit 
to Jupiter. Prometheus, in the place of a real ox, brought to 
the altar the hide of an ox of great size and beauty, stuffed 
with straw and leaves and twigs. In like manner, astronomy 
presents only the exterior of the heavenly bodies (I mean the 
number of the stars, their positions, motions, and periods), as 
it were the hide of the heavens, beautiful indeed and skilfully 
arranged into systems ; but the interior (namely the physical 
reasons) is wanting, out of which (with the help of astrono- 
mical hypotheses) a theory might be devised which would not 
merely satisfy the phenomena (of which kind many might 
with a little ingenuity be contrived), but which would set 

2 Book iv. ch. 2. 



BACON'S SURVEY OF THE SCIENCES. 85 

forth the substance, motion, and influence of the heavenly 

bodies as they really are Astronomy, as it now 

is, is fairly enough ranked among the mathematical arts, 
not without some loss of dignity ; seeing that, if it chose to 
claim its proper office, it ought rather to be accounted as the 
noblest part of physics. For whoever shall set aside the ima- 
ginary divorce between superlunary and sublunary things, and 
shall well observe the most universal appetites and passions of 
matter (which are powerful in both globes and make them- 
selves felt through the universal frame of things), will obtain 
clear and copious information of heavenly things from those 
which are seen amongst us ; and, on the other hand, from 
that which passes in the heavens he will gain no slight know- 
ledge of some motions of the lower world as yet undiscovered. 
"Wherefore this part of astronomy, which is Physical 
Astronomy, I pronounce deficient; giving it the name of 
Living Astronomy, in distinction from that stuffed ox of 
Prometheus, which was an ox in figure only." 8 As I have 
said elsewhere, 4 this passage might almost be regarded as a 
prediction not only of the discoveries of Newton, but of the 
mode in which he made them. And, though views of this 
kind were already beginning to be in the air, it might be main- 
tained, not without probability, that passages such as these, so 
admirably expressed, so full of hope, and so rich in suggestion, 
had no inconsiderable share in bringing about the magnificent 
results achieved in the studies of astronomy and mechanics by 
the next generation. 

An increasing number of the branches of Mixed Mathe- 
matics is foretold by Bacon in a passage where, as in some of 
the Aphorisms of the Novum Organum, he shows a just appre- 

3 Book iii. ch. 4. 

4 Introduction to the Novum On/<()iu?n, § 6. 
* Nov. Org, book i. apli. 96 ; book ii. aph. 8. 



86 BACON. 



ciation of the relations subsisting- between Mathematics and 
Physical Science. " In Mixed Mathematics I do not now find 
any entire parts deficient, but I predict that hereafter there 
will be many more kinds of them, if men be not idle. For as 
Physic advances farther and farther every day, and developes 
new axioms, it will require fresh assistance from Mathematics in 
many things, and so the parts of Mixed Mathematics will 
become more numerous." 6 

In Book vi., he proposes the comparative study of lan- 
guages. One of its uses will be to serve as a key to national 
characteristics. " There will be obtained in this way signs of 
no slight value, but well worthy of observation (which a man 
would hardly think perhaps), concerning the dispositions and 
manners of peoples and nations, drawn from their languages." 7 

The Seventh Book contains a chapter (ch. 3) on the 
" Georgics " or culture of the mind, an art whose province it 
ought to be to prescribe rules for accommodating the will of 
man to the pursuit of his highest good. This art must take 
account of the various dispositions, affections, and habits 
of different men, howsoever formed, and try, in virtue or in 
spite of them, to construct for the individual a happy and 
beneficent life. As to this part of moral doctrine, " when I 
recall the excellency thereof, I cannot but find it exceeding 
strange that it is not yet reduced to written inquiry." 

Amongst the desiderata mentioned in the Eighth Book, is 
a Treatise on Universal Justice or the Fountains of Equity. 
Bacon appends a specimen of such a treatise, digested into 
Aphorisms, which was afterwards published in a separate form. 
Its object is, ". by going to the fountains of justice and public 
expediency, to exhibit, with reference to the several provinces 
of law, a type and idea of justice, in comparison with which 
the laws of particular states and kingdoms may be tested and 

6 Book iii. ch. 6. ? Book vi. ch. 1. 



BACON'S SURVEY OF THE SCIENCES. 87 

amended." This idea had occurred to Bacon as least as early 
as the publication of the Advancement of Learning in 1605. 
He there says, towards the end of the Second Book : 8 " For the 
more public part of government, which is law, I think good 
to note only one deficiency ; which is, that all those which 
have written of law have written either as philosophers or as 
lawyers, and none as statesmen. As for the philosophers, 
they make imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths ; 
and their discourses are as the stars, which give little light 
because they are so high. For the lawyers, they write, ac- 
cording to the states where they live, what is received law, 
and not what ought to be law : for the wisdom of a lawmaker 
is one, and of a lawyer is another. For there are in nature 
certain fountains of justice, whence all civil laws are derived 
but as streams : and, like as waters do take tinctures and tastes 
from the soils through which they run, so do civil laws vary 
according to the regions and governments where they are 
planted, though they proceed from the same fountains." The 
idea of Natural Law or a Law of Nature was by no means 
new. The Roman Jurists had adopted it from the Greek 
Philosophers. But Bacon was probably the first writer who 
suggested its embodiment in a code, or gave a specimen of 
such a code. The great work of Grotius, Be Jure Belli el Pads, 
was not published till 1 625, though it may be noticed as a 
curious coincidence that, about the same time that Bacon was 
composing the Second Book of the Advancement of Learn 'mg, 
Grotius was engaged in writing the treatise, till recently un- 
published, entitled Be jure pr wdce, which, in its main princi- 
ples, anticipated his later work. 9 

8 See Mr. Aldis Wright's edition, pp. 249,250; Ellis and Spedding, 
vol. iii. pp. 475-6. 

9 See Mr. Pattison's article on Grotius in the last edition of the Ency- 
clopaedia Brilannica. 



88 BACON. 



In the books here under review^ Bacon does not confine 
himself to noting the deficiencies of the sciences. He 
notes also the deficiencies in the then existing- applications 
for their augmentation and distribution. Well worthy of 
perusal are the few paragraphs at the beginning of the second 
book both of the Advancement of Learning and of the De Aug- 
mentis, where he discusses the " three objects with which the 
works or acts of merit towards learning are conversant " — 
namely, "the places of learning, the books of learning, and 
the persons of the learned." These observations, as well as 
his Advice to the King touching Sutton's Estate? may still be 
read with profit by all who are interested either in advancing 



the limits of learning or in the maintenance of a high 
standard of superior instruction. That e< teachers of men " 
are as necessary in a state as " teachers of children; - " that 
" they who stay with the baggage should have equal part with 
those who are in the action;"" that, if the principal readers in 
the universities, "through the meanness of their entertain- 
ment," " take their place but in passage, it will make the 
mass of sciences want the chief and solid dimension, which is 
depth/' that " the searchers and spies of nature must have 
their expenses paid, or else you will never be well informed of 
a number of things most worthy to be known;" that Philosophy 
and Universality supply sap and strength to all the arts and 
professions ; that libraries are as the shrines wherein all the 
relics of the ancient saints full of true virtue are preserved : 
these are not simply pointed and epigrammatic sentences, but 
they express profound truths which even now men would do 
well to lay to heart, and which it might be the wisdom of states 
to embody in their institutions. 

1 Printed in Spedding's Letters and Life, vol. iv. pp. 249-54, and in 
Spedding's Life and Times of Bacon, vol. i. pp. 647—654. 



CHAPTER IV. 
bacon's reform of scientific method. 

Part I. 

In the history of literature, Bacon is mainly known as the 
writer of the Essays. But in the history of science, logic, 
and philosophy, the chief interest which attaches to his name 
is that of a reformer of scientific method. The Baconian 
reform, the Baconian method, the spirit of the Baconian 
philosophy, are phrases with which we are all familiar. The 
ohject of this chapter will be to explain these terms, and to 
show wherein the reform or new method, with which Bacon's 
name is associated, really consisted. 

The method which obtained almost exclusively in scientific 
inquiries during* the middle ages and up to Bacon's time is 
what is commonly called the Deductive method. Deduc- 
tion is always an indispensable part of logical procedure, but, 
as it argues from ultimate premisses or general principles, 
which it is itself incompetent to prove, there must be some 
other mode of ascertaining the truth of general principles, 
unless we are prepared to acquiesce in their assumption on no 
other grounds than fancy, authority, or caprice. Induction, 
as far back as the time of Aristotle, if not of Socrates and 
Plato, was recognized by philosophers as the regular and 
legitimate mode of establishing principles, and that men had 
in practice, from the very earliest times, generalised from 



9 o BAC1N. 



particulars, or, in other words, performed inductions, however 
little they had been led to reflect on the logical character or 
justification of the process, it is needless to remark. To infer 
propositions of general application from particular observations 
(Induction), and to apply general propositions to particular 
cases (Deduction), are, indeed, processes so essential to 
thought of any kind, or at least to any thought except of the 
most elementary character, that man could hardly be said to 
possess any Knowledge for himself, much less to be able to 
communicate it to others, till both these methods had come 
to be in ordinary use, It is, therefore, absurd to speak as if 
Bacon were the inventor of induction, great as are the 
obligations under which the inductive branch of logical 
analysis will always be To his efforts and his genius. Men 
have always reasoned inductively in the affairs of common 
life, nor has there ever been any period in the history of 
science so enslaved to authority, or so wedded to abstract 
theory, that the inductive side of inquiry has been neglected 
altogether. What Bacon complained of, and rightly com- 
plained of, was not that the writers and teachers of his time 
had no recourse to the observation of facts at all, but that 
they only looked out for facts in support of pre-conceived 
theories, or else, where authority and prejudice did not lead 
the way, constructed their theories on a hasty and unmethodical 
examination of a few facts collected at random. In either case 
they neglected to test or verify their generalisations, while they 
wasted their efforts in drawing out syllogistically long trains 
of elaborate conclusions, which, for aught they knew, might be 
vitiated by the unsoundness of the original premisses. 

It was to remedy these defects that Bacon designed the 
second part of his Great Instauration, the Novum Organum. 
This work, as already stated, was never finished. The First 
Book consists of a number of brilliant and pregnant aphorisms, 



BACON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 91 

intended to excite the reader's interest and to prepare him for 
the more weighty matter which is to follow. In these 
aphorisms, he dwells mainly on the futility of the methods of 
inquiry at present in use, on the necessity of a more faithful 
study of Nature, on the phantoms which beset the mind in 
its search for truth, on the causes of man's long continuance 
in error, and on the grounds of hope for the future progress 
of knowledge. In the Second Book, he sets to work to 
construct his own method, and, though the book abruptly 
ends before he has completed one quarter of his scheme, he 
succeeds in laying the foundations of a science for the inter- 
pretation of nature, which, rough and cumbrous as are some 
of the materials of which they are composed, furnish the 
ground-plan on which almost all subsequent workers in this 
department of knowledge have built. Inductive Logic, that 
is, the systematic analysis and arrangement of inductive 
evidence, as distinct from the natural induction which all men 
practise, is almost as much the creation of Bacon as Deductive 
Logic is that of Aristotle. It must, however, be acknowledged 
that the one left far more to be added and re-modelled by his 
successors than did the other. 

" Man," says Bacon, " is the servant and interpreter of 
nature." But as the bare hand is of little use in mechanical 
work, so the unassisted intellect can effect little in the work of 
reasoning. The one requires instruments, the other rules. 
Rules are, indeed, supplied by the logic which is in vogue, but, 
as these rules lend no aid in the examination of principles, 
they are of more avail in establishing error than in investi- 
gating truth. He who takes the wrong road wanders the 
further from his goal, the further he goes. The Syllogism, 
the great instrument of the ordinary logic, is, from the very 
nature of the ease, incompetent to prove the ultimate pre- 
misses from which it proceeds, and, while the truth of these 



92 BACON. 



remains doubtful, we can place no confidence in the conclusions 
which are drawn from them. It is in vain to construct ela- 
borate proofs of propositions depending on principles which are 
themselves uncertain. The only hope, therefore, of those who 
wish to establish knowledge on a firm basis is in a logic which 
shall be competent to examine these higher generalisations or 
first principles from which the various sciences start, that is 
to say, in a true induction. The language which Bacon here 
employs is by no means exaggerated. Of what use can it be 
to spin out long deductions, assuming the truth of principles 
which we have never examined ? Suppose us to assume that 
all the heavenly bodies move in circles, or that herbs are 
stamped with signs of the diseases which they will cure, or that 
the so-called four elements, earth, water, air, and fire, are each 
denser than the other in a tenfold proportion, or that the Bible 
contains a perfect system of physical science, can any series of 
deductions, however accurate and elaborate, drawn from such 
premisses, possess any other merit than that of mere con- 
sistency and ingenuity ? The conclusions may carry us 
further and further away into the mazes of error, but they 
cannot bring us nearer to truth. Hence, the first step in the 
reform of science- is to review its ultimate principles, and the 
first condition of a scientific method is that it shall be 
competent to conduct such an inquiry. 

Before, however, attempting to supply this want and to 
construct his " new instrument," the new Logic of Induction, 
Bacon lingers for a while over the existing condition of 
knowledge, points out the phantoms which obscure the vision 
of truth, enumerates the causes of past errors, and suggests 
grounds of hope for the future. 

Perhaps the best known part of the Novum Organum, and 
certainly one of the most valuable parts, is the account of the 
iC Idola Mentis Humanse," or " phantoms of the human mind," 



BACON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 93 

which occupies Aphorisms 38 — 70 of Book i. " The idols and 
false notions which are now in possession of the human un- 
derstanding, and are deeply rooted therein, not only so beset 
the minds of men that the entrance to truth is difficult : but, 
even if truth should effect an entrance, they will oppose them- 
selves again in the very instauration of the sciences; unless, 
being forwarned of the danger, men fortify themselves as far 
as may be against their assaults" (Aph. 38). These " idols" 
(ei$G)\a, plmntoms or spectres, and not, as they have some- 
times been erroneously interpreted, false gods) are four in 
number, and are enumerated as " idols of the tribe" (idola 
tribus)," idols of the den" (idola specus), " idols of the mar- 
ket- place " (idola fori), and " idols of the theatre " (idola 
theatri). In number, they happen to correspond with the 
" offend icuk" of Roger Bacon; namely, unworthy authority, 
custom, vulgar opinion, and concealment of ignorance com- 
bined with the ostentation of apparent wisdom. There is, 
however, little other resemblance between the " idola " and 
the " offendicula," and Francis Bacon is probably in no way 
indebted to his elder namesake for this part of his doc- 
trine. 1 

"The Idols of the Tribe have their foundation in human 
nature itself, and in the very tribe or race of men. For it is 
a false assertion that the sense of man" (sensus humanus) " is 
the measure of things. On the contrary, all percept iqns as 
well of the sense as of the mind are according to the measure 
of the individual and not according to the measure of the 
universe. And the human understanding is like a mirror un- 
evenly disposed to receive the rays of things, which mingles 
its own nature with the nature of things, and so distorts and 
discolours it " (Aph. 41). Examples of these idols of the tribe, 
which, though they are common to the whole race, admit of 

1 See note on book i. aph. 38, in my edition of the Novum Organum. 



94 BACON. 



being* detected by man himself, are the tendency to feign 
parallels and similitudes where none exist, or, in other words, 
the excessive love of system, the tendency to attach greater 
importance to affirmative than to negative instances, the dis- 
position to be unduly influenced by sudden and simultaneous 
impressions, the restless ambition to penetrate further into the 
nature and causes of things than the limits of the human 
faculties permit, the liability of the intellect to be warped by 
the will and affections, and the like. 

" The Idols of the Den have their origin in the peculiar 
constitution, mental or bodily, of each individual ; and also in 
education, habit, and accident.''' Examples are to be found in 
the affection of some men for particular sciences or kinds of 
speculation, in the tendency to notice differences rather than 
resemblances, or resemblances rather than differences, in the 
attachment to antiquity or novelty, in the partiality to minute 
or comprehensive investigations. The practical precept sug- 
gested by the last example affords a good instance both of 
the felicity of Bacon's language and of the sagacity of his 
observation. " Alternandse sunt contemplationes istse, et 
vicissim sumendse ; -ut intellectus reddatur simul penetrans et 
capax." (These kinds of contemplation should be alternated 
and taken by turns ; that so the understanding may be rendered 
at once penetrating and capacious). Aph. 57. 

The Idols of the -Market-Place {" Idola Fori "), which have 
insinuated themselves into the mind through the association 
of words and names with things, are, Bacon says, the most 
troublesome of all. They are of two kinds, being either names 
of supposed entities which have no real existence, or words 
inadequately or erroneously representing things or qualities 
actually existing. Of the former kind are " fortune," the 
"primum mobile," the " planetary orbs," and figments of that 
kind, which have their origin in false and idle theories. As 



BACON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 95 

examples of the other division of " Idola Fori w Baeon gives 

"earth/' " humid/'' " generation/' " corruption/' " alteration/' 
"heavy/' "light," "rare/' " dense/' and the like. This 
tonic of the fallacies imposed on the intellect by the want of 
correspondence between words and things is followed up by 
Locke in the celebrated Third Book of his Essay, as well as by 
many recent writers, and is well worthy of the attention of 
every student, who is desirous of thinking accurately. " Men 
believe/' says Bacon, "that their reason governs words; but 
it is also true that words react on the understanding ; and 
this it is that has rendered philosophy and the sciences sophis- 
tical and inactive. Now words, being commonly framed and 
applied according to the capacity of the vulgar, follow those 
lines of division which are most obvious to the vulgar under- 
standing. And whenever a more acute understanding or a 
more diligent observation would alter those lines to suit the 
true divisions of nature, words cry out against the change. 
Whence it comes to pass that the grand and solemn disputa- 
tions of learned men often end in controversies about words 
and names; with which (according to the use and prudence of 
the mathematicians) it would be wiser to begin, and so by 
means of definitions reduce such disputations to order. Yet 
even definitions cannot cure this evil in dealing with natural 
and material things; since the definitions themselves consist 
of words, and words beget words : so that it is necessary to 
recur to individual instances, and those in due series and 
order." Even when a precise and scientific sense has been 
attached to a word, there is always a difficulty in securing 
that it shall be employed or accepted in that signification j 
moreover, a word has always a tendency, as time goes mi, to 
glide by insensible degrees into another and often a very dif- 
ferent meaning from that in which, by convention or by the 
operation of natural causes, it was originally employed. 



96 BACON. 



The Idols of the Theatre, so called because they succeed one 
another like the plays on a stage, arise either from false 
systems of philosophy or from perverse laws of demonstration. 
The former division is represented by three schools of philo- 
sophers, the Rational or Sophistic, the Empiric, and the Super- 
stitious. " The Rational school of philosophers snatches from 
experience a variety of common instances, neither duly ascer- 
tained nor diligently examined and weighed, and leaves all the 
rest to meditation and agitation of wit." It deals but little 
with experience, and much with speculation . Of this theorising 
school, Bacon, somewhat unjustly, takes his typical instance 
from Aristotle, "who corrupted natural philosophy by his 
logic." The Empirical School, " having bestowed much dili- 
gent and careful labour on a few experiments, have thence 
made bold to educe and construct systems ; wresting all other 
facts in a strange fashion to conformity therewith.''' "To 
those who are daily busied with these experiments, and have 
infected their imagination with them, such a philosophy seems 
probable and all but certain ; to all men else, incredible and 
vain." This school deals almost entirely with experiments, 
but the experiments are confined within so narrow a compass 
that the axioms which may legitimately be founded thereon are 
not luminous enough to throw any real light on the great 
problems of science. Of the Empirics the typical instances 
are the Alchemists, to whom, strangely enough, Bacon adds 
Gilbert, the founder of the sciences of electricity and mag- 
netism. Elsewhere, he speaks of Gilbert as being so immersed 
in his own particular branch of study, as to have been himself 
turned into a magnet, and to have built a ship out of a thole- 
pin. 2 It must be confessed that Bacon's criticisms, both of 



* " Itaque vires magneticas non inscite introduxit Gilbertus, sed et ipse 
f actus magnes ; nimio scilicet plura quam oportet ad illas trahens > et 



BACON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 97 

his predecessors and his contemporaries, are often exaggerated 

or unfair. Last in order comes the Superstitious School, " con- 
sisting' of those who out of faith and veneration mix their 
philosophy with theology and traditions." This " corruption of 
philosophy by superstition and an admixture of theology n is far 
more widely spread and does more harm than either of the other 
causes of error. "For the human understanding' is obnoxious 
to the influence of the imagination no less than to the influence 
of common notions. For the contentious and sophistical kind 
of philosophy ensnares the understanding ; but this other kind, 
which is fantastic and tumid and half poetical, misleads it 
more by flattery. For there is in man an ambition of the 
understanding no less than of the will, especially in high and 
elevated spirits. Of this kind we have among the Greeks a 
striking example in Pythagoras, though his superstition is of 
the coarser and more cumbrous character ; another in Plato 
and his school, more dangerous and subtle. This form of evil 
is found also in parts of other philosophies, where there are 
introduced abstract forms and final causes and first causes, with 
the omission in most cases of causes intermediate and the like. 
In this matter the greatest caution should be used. For 
nothing is so mischievous as the apotheosis of error ; and it is 
to be held as a very plague of the understanding, if vanity 
become the object of reverence (si vanis accedat veneratio). 
Yet in this vanity some of the moderns have with extreme 
levity indulged, so far as to attempt to found a system of 
natural philosophy on the first chapter of Genesis, on the book 
of Job, and other parts of the sacred writings ; seeking- for the 
dead among the living. And so much the more is this vanity 
to be inhibited and restrained, because from the unwholesome 



navem sedificans ex scalmo." Aditus ad Historian (Iran's el Levis. 
See my note on Nov. Org. book i. aph. 51, ad fin. 



98 BACON. 



mixture of things human and divine there arises not only a 
fantastic philosophy but also a heretical religion. Very meet 
it is therefore that we be sober-minded, and give to faith that 
only which is faith's." (Aph. 65). 

" So much then for the mischievous authorities of systems, 
which are founded either on common notions, or on a few ex- 
periments, or on superstition." 

" Vicious methods of demonstration are the strongholds 
of fallacious theories; and those methods which we have in 
the ordinary logic do little else than enslave the world of nature 
to human thoughts, and human thoughts to words. Demon- 
strations indeed are potentially systems of philosophy and 
science. For such as these are, and according as they are well 
or ill established, such are the systems of philosophy and the 
contemplations which follow. Now in the whole of the process 
which leads from sense and particular objects to axioms and 
conclusions, the demonstrations which we use are deceptive and 
incompetent. This process consists of four parts, and has as 
many faults." (Aph. 69). He then proceeds to enumerate in 
order the four faults, which are (1) that the senses frequently 
fail or deceive us ; (2) that the notions derived from the im- 
pressions of the senses are confused and ill-defined; (3) that 
the induction commonly employed, for the purposes of genera- 
lisation, proceeds "per enumerationem simplicem,"or merely by 
accumulating instances, instead of by methods of selection and 
elimination ; (4) that, instead of rising gradually through the 
various intermediate grades of axioms to the highest axioms 
of all, men fly off at once to the latter and, without having 
sufficiently certified themselves as to their truth, proceed to 
deduce subordinate principles from them, as if their truth had 
been placed beyond doubt. On Bacon's idea of the proper 
mode of constituting the highest axioms by gradually ascending 
from the objects of sense and the lowest axioms (" axiomata 



BACON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 99 

infima") through the various intermediate stages, I shall speak 
hereafter. 

Having completed his discussion of the Idola, he proceeds 
(Aphs. 71 — 77) to enumerate the signs, five in number, of the 
weakness and insufficiency of the preceding philosophies. The 
first of these is their origin among the Greeks, whom he 
regards as a disputatious race, given to talking and wrangling, 
but inspired with no genuine love of truth. That this is an 
exaggerated judgment, need hardly be said. The disputatious 
character of the Greeks, though it may often have prevented 
them from arriving at truth, must at least have originated in 
the desire to attain it, nor, except for the tendency of the 
Greek race to discussion and abstract speculation, is it easy to 
see how modern science would ever have come into being. 
Another sign of the weakness of preceding systems is their 
lack of fruit. " For fruits and inventions are, as it were, spon- 
sors and sureties for the truth of philosophies." "Now from all 
these systems of the Greeks/' he adds, speaking again with 
some exaggeration, " and their ramifications through particular 
sciences, there can hardly after the lapse of so many years be 
adduced a single experiment which tends to relieve and advance 
the condition of man, and which is really due to the specula- 
tions and doctrines of philosophy." A further sign is to be 
found in the stationary character of existing systems. u For 
what is founded on nature grows and increases ; while what is 
founded on opinion varies but increases not. 3 Had therefore 
those doctrines not been plainly like a plant torn up from its 
roots, but had they remained attached to the womb of nature 
and continued to draw nourishment from her, that could never 

3 "Qua? cnitn in natura fundata sunt, crescunt el augentur; qusB autem 
in opinione, variantur, 11011 augentur." I give the original aa a felicitous 
example of the manner in which Bacon often phrases these epigrammatic 
sayings. 

H 2 



loo BACON. 



have come about which we see now to have happened for two 
thousand years past : namely, that the sciences stand where 
they did and remain almost in the same condition ; receiving* 
no increase worthy of mention, but, on the contrary, thriving" 
most under their first founder, and then declining'. Whereas 
in the mechanical arts, which are founded on nature and the 
light of experience, we see the contrary happen, for these (as 
long as they are popular) are continually thriving and growing, 
as having in them the breath of life; at first rude, then 
affording convenience, afterwards ornament, and at all times 
advancing." (Aph. 74.) 

The signs of weakness are followed by the causes of error, 
which are no less than fifteen in number. The first is that 
" of the five and twenty centuries over which the memory and 
learning of men extends, hardly six have been favourable to 
the development of the sciences. For in times no less than in 
regions there are wastes and deserts/'' Other causes of error 
are that, even when men have devoted themselves to learning, 
but little attention has been devoted to Natural Philosophy, 
the "great mother of the sciences/' that men have not set 
before themselves -the true goal of knowledge, which is none 
other than that human life be endowed with new discoveries 
and powers ; that they have followed wrong paths, such as the 
opinions of others or the ordinary logic or mere experience, 
instead of well-ordered and digested experience, which is the 
candle leading to truth ; that they have been enchanted by 
reverence for antiquity and authority, forgetting that it is 
ours which is truly the old age of the world ; 4 that they have 

4 " De antiquitate autem opinio, quam homines de ipsa fovent, negligens 
omnino est, et vix verbo ipsi congrua. Mundi enim senium et grandsevitas 
pro antiquitate vere habenda sunt, quae temporibus nostris tribui debent, 
non juniori setati mundi, qualis apud antiquos fuit. Ilia enim setas, 
respeetu nostri, antiqua et major ; respectu mundi ipsius, nova et minor 



BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 101 

been deterred from attempting any great and adequate « oter- 
prises in the realm of nature by pusillanimity, by superstitious 
fears, 6 by an exaggerated admiration for what lias already 
been achieved, and, above all, by despondency and a tendency 
to regard whatever is proposed as impossible. 

This last and potent cause of failure suggests to Bacon that, 
as " Columbus, before that wonderful voyage of his across the 
Atlantic, gave the reasons for his conviction that new lands 
and continents might be discovered besides those which were 
already known/' so he should set forth those grounds of hope 
which made an instauration of the sciences appear to him pro- 
bable. Of the twenty-one Grounds of Hope (occupying Aphs. 
93 — 114), one (Aph. 95) is derived from the expectations 
which may be formed from a closer and holier league between 
the experimental and rational faculties, such as has never yet 
been made. " Those who have handled sciences have been 
either men of experiment or men of dogmas. The men of 
experiment are like the ant; they only collect and use; the 

fuit." Aph. 84. See the notes on this Aphorism in my edition of the 
Novum Organum. In the De Augmentis, book i., Baron sums up these 
thoughts in one short aphorism : "Sane, ut verum dicamus, Antiquitas 
sueculi juventus munch." " Of living men " (says Sydney Smith in his 
review of Bentham's Book of Fallacies) "the oldest has, ceteris paribus, 
the most experience; of generations, the oldest has, cateris paribus, the 
least experience. Our ancestors, up to the Conquest, were children in arms ; 
chublw boys in the time of Edward the First; striplings under Elizabeth; 
men in the reign of Queen Anne; and we only are the white-bearded, 
silver-headed ancients, who have treasured up, and are prepared to profit 
by, all the experience which human life can supply." 

" Keque illudprsetermittendum est, quod nacta sit philosophia naturalis 
per omnes estates adversarium molestum et diffioilem; Buperstitionem 
nimirum, et zelum religionis caecum et Lmmoderatum. Aph. 89. This 
" blind and immoderate zeal for religion " is exempli lied in the feelil 
the Greeks towards those who first explained thunder and lightning by 
natural causes (see Aristophanes' Clouds, I. X7-. &c.) and of the Christian 
Fathers towards those who maintained the existence of Antipodes. 



102 BACON. 



reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own 
substance. But the bee takes a middle course ; it gathers its 
material from the flowers of the garden and of the field, but 
transforms and digests it by a power of its own. Not unlike 
this is the true mode in which philosophy works. For it 
neither relies solely or chiefly on the powers of the mind, nor 
does it take the matter which it gathers from natural history 
and mechanical experiments, and lay it up in the memory 
whole, as it finds it; but it lays it up in the understanding, 
after it has been duly transformed and digested/'' Other 
grounds of hoj:>e are to be found in the probable construction, in 
the future, of a Natural History better adapted than at present 
to the wants of Natural Philosophy, and containing a record- 
of experiments as well as observations (for Nature best dis- 
covers her secrets, when tortured by Art) ; in a larger collection 
of those experiments and observations which are of most use 
for the information of the understanding, that is to say, " ex- 
perimental lucifera" experiments of light, likely to be fertile in 
the discovery of causes and axioms, as distinguished from 
"experimeuta fructifera" experiments of fruit, which, though 
obviously and immediately useful, only produce particular 
effects ; in the introduction of a new method of carrying on our 
experiments and observations, and advancing from one to the 
other, instead of that mere groping inthedark("mera palpatio") 
which has hitherto been prevalent; in the formation of Tables of 
Discovery ; and in the induction of axioms inferred from par- 
ticulars " by a certain method and rule," which axioms shall, 
in their turn, point out the way to new particulars to be 
arrived at by deduction. In setting forth the Ground of 
Hope last mentioned, Bacon adds (Aph. 103) the words which 
have since been so frequently quoted in works on Scientific 
Method : " For our road does not lie on a level, but ascends 
and descends ; first ascending to axioms, then descending to 



BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME TIIOD. 1 0} 

works/' 8 The enumeration of the Grounds of Hope naturally 
ineludes many criticisms on the methods in vogue, favourable 
auguries being drawn from the likelihood of their ameliora- 
tion. Thus, in Aph. 104, where he protests against the pre- 
valent habit of flying off at once from particular facts to first 
principles or the most general axioms of all, he insists on the 
importance of establishing by a careful induction a sufficient 
number of intermediate axioms (" axiomata media "), which 
are "the true and solid and living axioms, on which depend 
the affairs and fortunes of men." M The understanding/' he 
adds (too much ignoring; perhaps, here as elsewhere, the office 
of the imagination in scientific inquiry), u must not therefore 
be supplied with wings, but rather hung with weights, to keep 
it from leaping and flying. Now this has never yet been 
done ; when it is done, we may entertain better hopes of the 
sciences." Again, in Aph. 105, he emphatically condemns 
the method of Induction by Simple Enumeration, or mere 
addition of instances. n It is a childish thing; its conclusions 
are precarious, and exposed to peril from a single contradic- 
tory instance; and it generally decides on too small a number 
of facts, and on those only which arc close at hand." 7 Then, 
after contrasting with this unscientific and faulty form the 
induction which he himself contemplates, which u must analyze 
nature by proper rejections and exclusions," he adds with a 
true appreciation of the difficulties of his task : v ' But in 
order to furnish this induction or demonstration well and 
duly for its work, very many things are to be provided which 

6 Neque enim in piano via sita est, sed ascendendo et desoendendo ; 
ascendendo primo ad axiomata, desoendendo ad opera. 

7 Inductio, quaa procedit per enumerationeni Bimplioem, res puerilis est, 
et precario conelndit, et periculo exponitur ab instantia contradictoria, et 

plerumque secundum pauciora quam par est, ex his tantummodo qiuu 
presto sunt, pronunciat. 



104 BACON. 



have never yet entered the thoughts of any mortal man ; in- 
somuch that greater labour will have to be spent on it than 
has hitherto been spent on the syllogism." It is verily in 
this new kind of induction, he says, that our chief hope lies. 
This portion of the Novum Organum\$ appropriately terminated 
by an appeal to his own example. u If there be any that de- 
spond, let them look at me, and take note that, being of all the 
men of my time the most occupied in affairs of state, and not 
of very strong health (which occasions a great loss of time), 
and in this course altogether a pioneer, following in no man's 
track nor sharing these counsels with any one, I have never- 
theless, by resolutely entering on the true road and submit- 
ting my mind to things, advanced these matters, as I suppose, 
some little way. And then let them consider what, after the 
way has thus been pointed out by me, may be expected from 
men abounding in leisure, and from association of labours, and 
from successions of ages." Aph. 113. 

After Bacon has thus described " the breath of hope blowing 
on us from that New Continent," he proceeds, before indicating 
" the art itself and rule of interpreting nature," to lay down 
certain warnings,, to offer certain apologies, and to answer, by 
anticipation, certain doubts and objections. Of the questions 
which, as he conceives, might be put to him, far the most im- 
portant is whether he intends his new method to be confined 
to the problems of natural philosophy, or contemplates its 
application to the other sciences as well, " logic, ethics, and 
politics." To this question he replies (Aph. 127): "Now I 
certainly mean what I have said to be understood of them all ; 
and as the common logic, which governs by the syllogism, 
extends not only to natural but to all sciences ; so does mine 
also, which proceeds by induction, embrace everything. For 
I form a history and tables of discovery for anger, fear, shame, 
and the like ; for matters political, and again for the mental 



BACON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 105 

operations of memory, affirmation and negation, judgment and 
the rest: not less than for heat and cold, or light, or vegeta- 
tion, or the like." This statement should carefully be noted; 
for, on a hasty reading of the Novum Organnm, it might easily 
be supposed that Bacon's object was confined to an instaura- 
tion of what we now call the natural sciences. He here, how- 
ever, explicitly tells us that his method is applicable, and in- 
tended to be applied, to the whole realm of knowledge. Nor, 
greatly as the illustrations from the study of external nature 
preponderate, are there wanting many passages in his works 
which show that he regarded the study of man and society as 
falling within the scope of his new philosophy and capable 
of being advanced by the application of his new method. 8 
That the inductive method has, since Bacon's time, been 
largely and successfully applied to the treatment of these 
subjects hardly needs to be stated. In the earlier stages, at 
any rate, of what may be called the mental, moral, and social 
sciences, the employment of induction is now generally 
regarded as indispensable, and no writer on these questions, 
who^e speculations were not based on or supported by observa- 
tion, w r ould, in this country at least, receive any attention. 
As I have said elsewhere, 9 " the enormous extension which the 
method of Induction has received in recent times by the appli- 
cation of a historical treatment to the subjects of law, institu- 

8 For proof of this assertion, see the notes on aph. 127, in my edition 
of the Novum Organum. 

9 See my notes on Nov, Org. book i. aph. 127. For a brief description 
of the Historical Method, I may refer the reader to my Induct ire Logic, 
ch. 3 (3rd ed. pp. 2<)0 — 2(»2), and for some remarks on Mr. Mill's account 
of it (given in his Logic, book vi. ch. 10,>, to ch. 5, p. 246. Numerous 
examples of its employment will be found, amongst English writers, in 
the works of Sir II. Maine, Professor Max M tiller, Sir J. Lubbock. Mr. 
Tylor, and (though, in this case, mixed up with a good deal of abstract 
speculation) Mr. Herbert Spencer. 



io6 BACON. 



tions, language, art, morals, religion, &c, lias really laid the 
basis of a scientific study of man, which may at some future 
time rival in respect of certainty, while it will even transcend 
in interest, the scientific study of nature." 

The First Book of the Novum Organum closes with a re- 
markable sentence : " We, who regard the mind, not only in 
respect to its own faculties, but also in its relations to things, 
ought to hold that the art of discovery may advance as dis- 
coveries themselves advance." 1 This sentence is as true and 
pregnant, as it is epigrammatic. Advances in science and in 
the method of science must go hand in hand. The logic ade- 
quate to the simple reasoning of early times is no longer 
adequate to the wants of a scientific age, when knowledge is so 
varied and elaborate as it has now become. Condillac un- 
doubtedly states this position in an exaggerated form, when 
he says : ' ' If the Tartars wished to make an Art of Poetry, 
you know well that it would be a bad one, because they have no 
good poets. It is just the same with the Logics which have been 
made before the seventeenth century." 2 There must be some 
scientific reasoning to analyse, before there can be an analysis 
of it ; but it is eqcially true that, when such an analysis has 
been made, and rules laid down for discriminating between 
correct and incorrect reasoning, the scientific inquirer or 
student is furnished with guides and cautions which ought to 
place him on a vantage-ground as compared with his prede- 
cessors. In the last resort, indeed, all modes of reasoning may 
be reduced to a few very simple formulae, which are common 

1 Neque tamen illis nihil addi posse affirmamus : sed contra, nos, qui 
mentem respicimus, non tantum in facilitate propria sed quatenus copulatur 
cum rebus, artem inveniendi cum inventis adolescere posse, statuere 
debemus. 

2 Histoire Moderne, livre xx. eh. 12. For further remarks on this 
subject, see the last note to book i. in my edition of the Novum Organum. 



BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME TIIOD. 1 07 

alike to the reasonings of common life and of science ; but these 
may be combined and applied in so infinite a variety of ways 
that the art of the logician can never be regarded as com- 
plete, any more than the accumulations of knowledge, real 
or supposed, which it is his task to test and adjudicate upon. 
Hence, some acquaintance with the existing conditio d of science 
is at least as indispensable to the logician as some acquaintance 
with the existing rules of scientific method is to the man of 
science. 

From the prefatory remarks of Book i., Bacon passes in 
Book ii. to a more formal and systematic exposition of his 
method. The first ten Aphorisms consist mainly of general 
reflections on the ends of science, on the necessity of inquiring 
into Forms, and on the connexion between the speculative 
and operative branches of knowledge. In the 11th Aphorism 
the real business of the book begins, and this and the two next 
aphorisms contain the celebrated Iuductive Tables which, 
together with the " exclusion or rejection of natures M of which 
an example is given in Aph. 18, constitute Bacon's principal 
apparatus for arriving at a knowledge of the " Form." Before 
proceeding any further, something must be said as to the 
meaning of this expression and its importance in Bacon's con- 
ception of philosophy. 

Jn the Second Book of the Advancement of Learning} he- 
distinguishes between the provinces of Physic and Metaphysic,. 
assigning to the former the inquiry into Material and Efficient 
Causes, and to the latter the inquiry into Formal and Final 

3 The parallel passage in the De Augment is is in book iii. eh. 4. The 
reader, who has leisure to pursue this subject, should compare these 
passages, and refer to the Section (§ 8) entitled " On the meaning attached 
by Bacon to the word Form," in the Introduction to my edition of the 
Novum Organum. 



io8 BACON. 



Causes. He then proceeds to say that, as to the assignment .^f 
Formal Causes to Metaphysic, it " may seem to be nugatory 
and void, because of the received and inveterate opinion that 
the inquisition of man is not competent to find out essential 
forms or true differences, of which opinion we will take this 
hold; that the invention of Forms is of all other parts of 
knowledge the worthiest to be sought, if it be possible to be 
found. As for the possibility, they are ill discoverers that 
think there is no land when they can see nothing but sea. But 
it is manifest that Plato in his opinion of Ideas, as one that had 
a wit of elevation situate as upon a cliff, 4 did descry that forms 
were the true object of knowledge ; but lost the real fruit of 
his opinion, by considering of forms as absolutely abstracted 
from matter, and not confined and determined by matter, and 
so turning his opinion upon Theology, wherewith all his na- 
tural philosophy is infected. But if any man shall keep a 
continual, watchful, and severe eye upon action, operation, and 
the use of knowledge, he may advise and take notice what are 
the forms, the disclosures whereof are fruitful and important 
to the state of man " The Forms of Substances, indeed, f 'are 
so perplexed, as they are not to be inquired/'' or, as is added 
in the De Avgmentis, " they should be laid aside for a time, 
and resumed after the forms of a more simple nature have been 
duly sifted and discovered." To inquire into the forms of 
substances before we have inquired into the forms of a more 
simple nature is no more " possible or to purpose " than " to 
seek in gross the forms of those sounds which make words, 
which by composition and transposition of letters are infinite." 
" But on the other side to inquire the form of those sounds or 
voices which make simple letters is easily comprehensible ; and 

4 This clause is better stated in the parallel passage of the De Augmentis . 
" But it is manifest that Plato, a man of a sublime genius, who took a 
view of everything as from a high rock," &c. 



BA COJSTS REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME TIIOD. 1 09 

being known induceth and manifesteth the forms of all words, 
which consist and are compounded of them. In the same 
manner to inquire the form of a lion, of an oak, of gold ; nay, 
of water, of air, is a vain pursuit: but to inquire the forms of 
senee, of voluntary motion, of vegetation, of colours, of gravity 
and levity, of density, of tenuity, of heat, of cold, and all other 
natures and qualities, which, like an alphabet, are not man}', 
and of which the essences (upheld by matter) of all creatures 
do consist ; to inquire, I say, the true forms of these, is that 
part of metaphysic which we now define of." The first busi- 
ness of science, then, is to enquire into the " forms of simple 
natures ;" when these have been ascertained, but not till then, 
we may hope to give an account of the vast multiplicity 
of objects with which we are surrounded. Just as a word is 
composed of letters, so a substance is composed of qualities, and, 
when we have resolved the substance into its qualities, we may 
give a full explanation of it, and can only give a full explana- 
tion of it, by assigning the " form " of each of the qualities of 
which it is composed. Similarly, in the operative branch of 
knowledge, we may produce a substance by superinducing, one 
after another, the various qualities which constitute it, or we 
may transform one substance into another, by eliminating one 
or more qualities and substituting one or more new ones. (See 
Nov. Org. book ii. aphs. 1 — 5.) 

The discovery of the " Form," then, being of such primary 
importance in Bacon's conception of science, we must ask : 
AVhat is a Form, and How is the Form of a Simple Nature to 
be discovered ? 

The word "Form," as employed by Bacon, is undoubtedly 
connected with the Formal Cause or Essence (to elSos or to ti 
r)v ehac or 1) ovaia) of Aristotle. But we are rather concerned 
with the way in which he himself uses the word, than with the 
historical antecedents which led him thus to use it Now, 



no BACON. 



after a careful consideration of the various passages in which 
it occurs, I have arrived at the conclusion that they may all 
be ranged under two classes. In one of these, the word 
" form -" may always be replaced by words like essence, differ- 
entia, definition, &c. ; in the other by words like law, cause, 
&c. 5 By form, in the sense of essence, is to be understood the 
aggregate of independent and underived (or, as we might call 
them, primary 6 ) attributes, from which all the other attributes 
appertaining to the class, substance, or quality, are derived, as 
effects from causes. By form, in the other sense, is to be under- 
stood the law of the developement or manifestation or production 
of any given quality or body. And, if we take into account 
the pre-existing conditions as well as the law of their develope- 
ment, we obtain the conception of " cause " in its fullest extent. 
" Now, is it possible to reconcile or bring into any connexion 
these two apparently divergent meanings ? 7 The form, we 
have seen, is, according to the one conception, the aggregate 
of the primary or underived attributes from which the other 
attributes are derived, as effects from causes. According to 
the other conception, it is the law according to which the 
phenomenon in question is developed out of pre-existing con- 
ditions, or, taking into account the conditions, it is, in brief, 
its cause. But practically (and the practical interest is, with 

5 There is one passage (Nov. Org. book i. aph. 75), in which the two 
meanings are brought together : "Hinc opinio, quod forma? sive verse rerum 
differentiae (quae revera sunt leges actus puri) inventu irnpossihiles sint, et 
ultra hominem." 

6 I am not here employing the word " primary" with any reference to 
the distinction, rendered familiar by Locke and other writers, between the 
so-called " primary and secondary qualities of matter." I am simply 
employing it in the sense of underived or having no assignable cause. 

7 I am quoting here, as I have also done in some portions of the pre- 
ceding paragraph, from § 8 of the Introduction to my Edition of the Novum 
Organum. 



B A COWS REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 1 1 1 

Bacon, always supreme), these two conceptions may, if we take 
a sufficiently sanguine view of human power, be regarded as 
leading to the same result. Given the aggregate of primary 
and underived attributes, and we are able to produce the phe- 
nomon, or rather it follows as a matter of course. Given the 
pre-existing' conditions and the law of their developement, and 
(on the important assumption that we are able to further their 
developement) we are ourselves able to produce the effect. 
Thus the knowledge of the essence and the knowledge of the 
cause are, for all practical purposes, the same. If, to take 
Bacon's instances, we know that heat consists in a certain kind 
of motion, or whiteness in a certain juxtaposition of particles, 
we are already acquainted with the law of its developement or 
cause of its production. Or, to take Lasalle's instance of 
Form, if we are acquainted with Newton's analysis of a white 
ray of light into the several coloured rays of which it is com- 
posed, it is indifferent whether we speak of these rays as 
constituting ( = being the essence of) whiteness, or as produc- 
ing ( = being the cause of) whiteness. And, as substances or 
concrete bodies were, according to Bacon's conception, ' forma? 
copulata?,' or combinations of certain f simple natures/ a 
knowledge of the ' essence' would, in their case also, be equi- 
valent to a knowledge of the * cause.' " 

In modern scientific terminology, therefore, we may usually 
replace the Baconian question "What is the Form" by the 
question " What is the Cause." 

We have now to consider the peculiar method by which 
Bacon conceived that the Form, essential nature, cause, or law, 
was to be ascertained. 

He is never weary of dwelling on the insufficiency of the 
Inductio per EnumerationemSimplicem, or method of induction 
then in vogue. This method consisted in merely accumulating 
instances presenting the phenomenon in question, without 



U2 BACON. 



following any rule of selection. If any other circumstance 
were found invariably to accompany the phenomenon, this 
circumstance was set down, without further examination, as its 
cause, or effect, or at least as connected with it in the way of 
causation. An invariable concomitance of two or more quali- 
ties within the range of observation undoubtedly affords a 
presumption of causation, but this presumption may often 
be very slight and easily dissipated by further experience. 
Thus, a native of the North of Europe might, some centuries 
ago, have concluded to his own satisfaction that all men are 
white, or a native of Central Africa that all men are black. 
Instead of this hasty and hap-hazard kind of induction, it is 
the peculiar merit of Bacon to have conceived, and to a certain 
extent to have elaborated, a regular and scientific method, 
proceeding by way of elimination, and thus carrying up an 
effect to its cause or following a cause into its effects by a 
chain of demonstrative reasoning. This method he calls the 
Method of Exclusions or Rejections, and it is in this device 
that he conceives the peculiar value and originality of his logi- 
cal system to consist. 8 Some of the assumptions on which the 
Method of Exclusions rests would now unquestionably be re- 
jected as false or doubtful, but, when taken along with its 
adjuncts, it must none the less be regarded as a monument of 
Bacon's genius as well as the beginning of a new era in the 
history of the methods of scientific inquiry. 

We have seen that Bacon conceived it possible, by means of 
analysis, to arrive at a number of qualities or " simple natures," 
standing in the same relation to the complex substances which 
they are supposed to constitute as the letters of an alphabet to 

8 At Inductio, quae ad inventionem et demonstrationem scientiarum et 
artium erit utilis, naturam separare debet, per rejectiones et exclusiones 
debitas ; ac deinde, post .negatives tot quot sufficiunt, super affirmativas 
concludere. Nov. Org. book i. aph. 105. 



BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME TIIOD. 1 1 3 

the various words which occur in a language. These " simple 
natures " he regarded as limited in number, and, apparently, 

as all capable of being ultimately ascertained. Now some of 
these ''simple natures/' he assumed, depend upon others, that 
is to say, are effects or modes of others, and, if we can only 
ascertain what these others are on which they depend, may be 
produced by means of them. The " simple nature " on which 
another "simple nature" depends (for it is always assumed 
that there is only one such nature) is its Form. To discover 
the Form, we have only to go through the list of " simple 
natures " (supposed to be exhaustive), and find reasons, 
grounded on observations or experiments or on a comparison of 
obseivations or of experiments or of both, for setting aside first 
one, and then another, till at last one u simple nature " only is 
left. This will be the Form of which we are in search. Or if, in- 
stead of excluding all the " simple natures " but one, we can 
only narrow them down to a few, the Form will have subse- 
quently to be sought amongst these few, or, at least, we must 
content ourselves with the knowledge that it is to be found 
somewhere or other amongst them. 

This method (which we must recollect Bacon regarded as an 
ideal, not likely for some time to be attained ") is open to many 
obvious objections. In the first place, there must be some one, 
if not more, of the "simple natures " which is ultimate, and 
therefore has no " Form " outside of itself. To this objection, 
however, Bacon would probably have replied that the ultimate 
character of such a "nature " would be ascertained by a due 
use of his method ; for, if all the other M simple natures u were 
excluded, it would follow that there was no external " Form " 
or cause of the nature in question. And it may have been for 
this reason that, in writing the Novum Orgaunm, he substi- 

9 Neque veroipsa exclusiva ullo modo perfecta est, Deque adeo esse potest 
sub iuitiie. Nov. Org. book ii. aph. 19. 

I 



114 BACON. 



tuted for motion, the Form of .which he had proposed to him- 
self for enquiry in his earlier essay the Filum Labyrinthi, and 
which he had now perhaps come to regard as an ultimate fact, 
the example of Heat, which, as we shall presently see, he re- 
solved into a particular kind of motion. Another objection, 
not so easily answered, is that Bacon always assumes that each 
"simple nature" has only one form. Wherever the word 
" form " can be replaced by cc essence," this assumption is 
justified ; but, wherever it is more correctly replaced by 
" cause," the assumption is open to the objection, taken by 
Mr. Mill, that an effect is sometimes due to one set of condi- 
tions and sometimes to another. Thus, to employ the technical 
language of Mr. Mill's logic, Bacon ignores the consideration 
of the Plurality of Causes. A third objection (and, perhaps, the 
most obvious of all) is this. Why take the trouble to go through 
the whole list of " simple natures/' elaborately rejecting one 
after another in turn, when we can often take the much shorter 
route of establishing, by the various subsidiary methods which 
he himself suggests, a positive connexion between some one phe- 
nomenon or " nature " and another ? As I have said elsewhere, 1 
if the connexion between two phenomena or " natures " satis- 
fies all the requirements of the Inductive Methods as now 
ordinarily -stated (and we may regard Bacon as approximately 
formulating these Methods in the early part of the Second Book 2 ) , 
we are surely justified, without going through any "exclu- 
sion " of other natures, in affirming a causal relation between 
them. On the other hand, however large the number of 
" natures " which we can succeed in excluding, we can hardly 
ever be certain, in the present state of knowledge or any which 
we are likely to attain, that we have excluded all but one. 
And, even supposing we were able to attain this certainty, how 

1 See § 9 of the Introduction to my Edition of the Novum Organxm. 
8 See especially Aph 15. 



BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME TIIOD: 1 1 5 

do we know, unless we have some positive evidence, that the 
remaining nature is the cause or" form " of the given nature ? 
Might they not both be, so far as our knowledge reaches, ulti- 
mate facts of nature, uniformities of co-existence, like Inertia 
and Gravity? Or lastly, might not the given nature be the 
form of the other, instead of the reverse ? 

The apparatus for conducting the Method of Exclusions is 
of far more importance in the history of Inductive Logic than 
is that method itself, and it is remarkable that it is quite as 
applicable to obtaining positive as to obtaining negative 
results. 8 This apparatus consists of certain "Tables" and a 
comparison of the results therein contained. In the First 
Table (Aph. 11), taking heat as his example of the " nature" 
whose Form is to be found, he brings together, or rather 
attempts to bring together, instances of all the known circum- 
stances, however dissimilar in other respects, under which heat 
presents itself. Some of the u instances agreeing in the 
nature of heat " (InstantisB convenientes in nature calidi) are 
of the most bizarre kind, and there is a confusion throughout 
between substances which excite in our organs a sensation of 
heat and those which are themselves actually hot. But yet 
the principle on which these instances are collected is a 
thoroughly sound one. If the investigator can succeed in 
bringing together instances so numerous and various, that, in 
addition to the given "nature," they have only one other 
circumstance in common, that circumstance may be regarded 
with considerable probability as connected by causation with 

8 In Aph. 15 he actually gives a rule (or rules) for obtaining from the 
" Tables" an immediate and positive result. " Facta autem comparentia, 
in opere ponenda est ipsa Inductio. Invenienda est enim, super eompa- 
rentinm omnium et singularum instantiartun, Datura talis, qua cum 
natura data perpetuo adsit, absit, atqae erescat, et deorescat.*' Hut he at 
once arrests himself, as I shall presently point out in the Text, and then 
proceeds in the next Aphorism to throw the rules into a negative form. 

I % 



n6 BACON. 



the given nature, and if it be sometimes found to precede the 
appearance of the given nature, while the given nature is never 
found to precede it, this circumstance may with considerable 
probability be regarded as the cause of which the given nature 
is the effect. In fact, the conditions will have fulfilled the 
requirements of Mill's Method of Agreement. 4 

In the Second Table (Aph. 12), he collects instances ap- 
proximating closely in other respects to some one or other of 
the instances in the First Table, but not presenting the pheno- 
menon of Heat 5 (Instantise in proximo, qua? privantur natura 
Calidi). Thus, to the rays of the sun, which are hot, are 
opposed the rays of the moon, which are not hot, and are sup- 
posed at times to be cold ; to boiling liquids are opposed liquids 
in their ordinary condition. Here again, if, by a judicious 
selection of instances, an example in the Table of Agreement 
and a corresponding example in the Table of Privation could be 
found so related as to have every circumstance in common, 
except the presence of heat along with some other circumstance 
in the former case, and the absence of heat along with the 
absence of that other circumstance in the latter case, we might 
conclude (not probably merely, but with certainty) that heat and 
this other circumstance were related to each other as cause (or 
at least as a necessary part of the cause) and effect. In other 
words, the conditions would have satisfied the requirements of 
the method of Difference. A negative result might, however, 
be attained on far less stringent conditions. Thus, suppose 
that we were led by the heat of the solar rays to suspect that 

4 For an account of this and the other inductive methods here mentioned, 
see Mill's Logic, book hi., or my Inductive Logic, ch. 3. 

5 It must, of course, be recollected that, in Bacon's day, Heat and Cold 
were regarded as distinct and opposed qualities, not as different degrees of 
the same quality, or, as we should now say, different degrees of tempera- 
ture. By " hot " Bacon means a temperature exceeding the average tem- 
perature of the human body. 



BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 1 17 

light was the cause of heat, the observation of the lunar rays 
would at once enable us to eliminate, " exclude/' or " reject M 
this Form ; for we should have an instance where the supposed 
cause was present, but where its supposed effects did not follow. 

In the Third Table (Aph. 13), there are broug-ht together 
instances of different degrees of the given nature (Tabula 
Oraduum sive Comparative in Calido), whether exhibited in 
the same or different subjects. If some other phenomenon 
could be discovered which increased and diminished propor- 
tionately with the increase and diminution of heat, that phe- 
nomenon would be the cause or the effect of heat, or, at least, 
causally connected with it in some way or other, and the con- 
ditions would thus conform to the requirements of Mill's 
Method of Concomitant Variations. If it could further be 
shown that this phenomenon and heat were the only circum- 
stances which varied concurrently, then the phenomenon would 
be proved, not merely to be causally connected with heat, but 
to be either the cause or the effect of it. 6 

With regard both to this and the two former Tables, it must 
be carefully borne in mind that I am stating- the conditions 
under which we should now feel justified in drawing certain 
conclusions from them, and not either the precise conditions 
or the precise conclusions which Bacon himself formulated. 

It is, however, remarkable that, no sooner are the Tables 
completed, than Bacon goes on to say (Aph. 15) that, "on 
the appearance of all and singular the instances therein con- 
tained, we must find a nature of such a kind as to be always 
present, absent, and increasing and decreasing with the given 
nature." Were the two former of these conditions both ful- 
filled, namely, invariable concomitance of both presence and 

6 The conditions would, in this case, conform to the requirements of the 
Rider to the Canon of Concomitant Variations, given in my Inductive 
Logic, 3rd ed., p. 182. 



118 BACON. 



absence, the case would satisfy the requirements of Mill's Joint 
Method of Agreement and Difference, and not only should we 
be able to exclude the imperfection of proof arising from 
Plurality of Causes (which attaches to a mere concomitance of 
presence), but, having established that one of the phenomena 
was a cause of the other, we should know moreover that it was 
the only cause. 7 

Having, however, suggested this positive method of dealing 
with the Tables, Bacon is shy of pursuing it, and recurs at once 
to his favourite idea of employing a series of " exclusions " or 
V rejections." " To arrive immediately at a knowledge of forms 
by mere affirmation is suitable to the intelligence of God (the 
creator of Forms) or perchance to angels, but it is certainly 
far above the power of man, to whom it is only granted to 
proceed first by negatives, and in the last place to end in 
affirmatives, after every manner of exclusion." He then pro- 
ceeds (Aph. 16) to state the precise manner in which the 
Method of Exclusions is to be applied. " The first work of 
true induction (as far as regards the discovery of forms) is the 
rejection or exclusion of the several natures which are not 
found in some instance where the given nature is present ; or 
are found in some instance where the given nature is absent; 
or are found to increase in some instance where the given nature 
decreases, or to decrease where the given nature increases." 
Of these grounds of rejection it may be remarked that, owing 
to the possibility of a Plurality of Causes, the " given nature " 
might be present without the other nature, or might increase 
while the other nature was decreasing, even though this last 
was one of the causes capable of producing it. Hence a " re- 
jection " on either of these grounds might be unwarranted. 

1 See Mill's Logic on the Joint Method of Agreement and Difference, 
or my Inductive Logic on the Double Method of Agreement, as I prefer 
to call this method. 



BACON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 1 19 

On either of the two other grounds, inasmuch as a cause must 
always produce its effect, a rejection would be warranted. 
" After the rejection and exclusion has been duly made," Bacon 
adds, " there will remain at the bottom, inasmuch as all the 
volatile opinions will vanish into smoke, a Form affirmative, 
solid, and true, and well defined." This, it may be repeated, 
could only be the case, if all possible causes had been con- 
sidered, and the rejection had been so exhaustive, that only 
one cause remained, — conditions which it is almost impossible 
to fulfil. Well then might Bacon confess that, though his 
method was soon described, the way itself was long and intri- 
cate (Aph. 16), and that, for the present at least, he must also 
employ, or rather employ as auxiliary and preparatory to it, 
other aids for the understanding (Aphs. 19. 21). 

Before, however, describing these other aids, he hazards a 
hypothesis (Aph. 20) on the Form of Heat, based on the 
materials collected in the Tables. This "giving reins to the 
Understanding, or First Vintage" (permissio intellectus or 
vindemiatio prima), must be regarded as a sort of parenthesis, 
inserted, by way of encouragement and relief, during the con- 
duct of the more stringent method of Exclusions with its 
various aids. It is remarkable not only on account of its 
result, but also as seeming to afford an example of that very 
process of u flying off from sense and particulars to the widest 
generalizations/' which Bacon himself condemns in the First 
Book. 8 It must be borne in mind, however, that the mental 
habit which he condemns is rather that of acquiescing too 
readily and confidently in wide generalizations, when formed, 

8 See Nov. Org. book i. aph. 19. On Bacon's attitude towards the 
use of Hypothesis, as well as on the general question of the employment 
of Hypotheses in science, the reader may consult my notes on Nov. Org. 
book i. aphs. 19, KM!, and on hook ii. aph. 20, ad init. The relation of 
Hypothesis to Induction and the conditions of a legitimate hypothesis arc 
discussed in my Inductive Logic, 3rd ed., pp. 95 — 121. 



I2 o BACON. 



than that of forming them, and, moreover, that the hypothesis 
started in ii. 20 is founded on what Bacon himself, at all 
events, regarded as a wide basis of facts. As is well exempli- 
fied in the present instance, a hypothesis, provided we recollect 
that it is merely a hypothesis and do not, without rigorous in- 
vestigation, accept it as an established truth, may often be the 
best step that we can take in the existing condition of a science, 
and it always has the effect, while still open to discussion, of 
stimulating inquiry and directing its course. " The fantastic 
character/' as I have said elsewhere, " of the Ancient Physics 
was due far less to an exuberant imagination than to a defec- 
tive sense of evidence. And the true remedy was to insist on 
the necessity of verification rather than on the suppression of 
hypothesis." 

The result of Bacon's " First Vintage" is remarkable in the 
history of science. Anticipating the theory of Heat now 
generally accepted, he defines it as " a motion, expansive, 
restrained, and striving amongst the smaller particles of 
bodies." 9 Even the modern theory as to the undulatory char- 
acter of this motion seems to be anticipated in the following 
passage, which is quoted with approbation by Professor 
Tyndall : " The third specific difference is this, that heat is a 
motion of expansion, not uniformly of the whole body together, 
but in its ultimate particles ; and at the same time checked, 
repelled, and beaten back, so that the particles acquire a motion 
alternative, perpetually quivering, striving and struggling, 
and irritated by repercussion, whence springs the fury of 
fire and heat." 1 That there are some fanciful and super- 
ficial ideas implied in Bacon's account of Heat there can be no 
doubt, but it is surely a striking testimony to his genius that, 

9 Calor est motus expansivus, cohibitus, et nitens per partes minores. 
1 See Tjndall's Seat a Mode of Motion, Appendix to ch. 2, and cp. 
with Bacon's account § 339 of the same work (3rd ed.). 



BACON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 121 

in his main conception of Heat as an expansive and oscillatory 
motion amongst the minute particles of matter, he should have 
anticipated the precise conclusion at which, after the pre- 
dominance, for a long" time, of a different theory, the most 
eminent physicists have at length arrived. 

In the 21st Aphorism, having completed the Tables and 
given an example of the Method of Exclusion, and having, 
moreover, gathered the first vintage, he proceeds to describe 
" the remaining helps of the understanding, as they promote 
the interpretation of nature and a true and perfect induction." 
"The helps" are nine altogether, and are intended as sub- 
sidiary to the Method of Exclusions, for the purposes of which 
the Tables alone are not supposed to be sufficient. It is not 
necessary for me even to enumerate these helps, but I may note 
that the seventh was to be the Deduction to Practice (Deductio 
ad Praxin) or the application of general axioms, arrived at by 
induction, to the needs of practical life, or, as Bacon puts it, 
it was to be " of that which is in relation to Man/' The only 
u help " which Bacon describes (the description of the rest he 
deferred to a more convenient season which he never found) 
is the "Prerogatives of Instances " (Prerogative Instanti- 
arum). These are so called from the " Tribus Prerogativa," 
which, being selected by lot, voted first in the " Comitia Tri- 
buta " of the Romans, and thus not only afforded an indica- 
tion of the mode in which the other tribes were likely to vote, 
but also frequently exercised a considerable influence on their 
decision. They are, as Sir John Hirschel 2 says, " characteristic 
phenomena, selected from the great miscellaneous mass of 
facts which occur in nature, and which, by their number, in- 
distinctness, and complication, tend rather to confuse than to 

3 See Herschel's Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, § 190. 
Sir John Herschel gives some excellent illustrations of some of the more 
important of the Prerogative Instances. See §§ li>0 — 200. 



122 BACON. 



direct the mind in its search for causes and general heads of 
induction. Phenomena so selected on account of some 
peculiarly forcible way in which they strike the reason, and 
impress us with a kind of sense of causation or a particular 
aptitude for generalization, Bacon considers, and justly, as 
holding a kind of prerogative dignity, and claiming our first 
and especial attention in physical inquiries." 

Some of the phrases by which Bacon designates his preroga- 
tive instances ; such as crucial instances, glaring' instances, clan- 
destine instances, have become household words. I shall give 
a brief description of a few of the prerogative instances, selected 
on account either of their historical or of their logical interest. 

Solitary Instances (Aph. 22) are "such as exhibit the 
nature under investigation in subjects which have nothing in 
common with other subjects except that nature ; or again such 
as do not exhibit the nature under investigation in subjects 
which are in all respects similar to other subjects, except in 
the fact of not having that nature." " For it is clear," he 
adds, " that such instances cut off many long circuits, and 
accelerate and strengthen the process of exclusion ; so that a 
few of them are as good as many." It is curious, and a 
striking example of Bacon's sagacity, that the two divisions of 
the " instantiae solitarise " correspond respectively with Mill's 
Methods of Agreement and Difference. Nor is he less happy 
in his illustration of at least the first division than in his rule. 
" If the inquiry," he says, " be into the nature of Colour, 
Solitary Instances are to be found in prisms, or crystalline 
gems, which show colours not only in themselves, but exter- 
nally on a wall ; also in dews, &c. For these have nothing 
in common with the colours fixed in flowers, coloured gems, 
metals, various kinds of wood, &c, except colour itself. From 
which we easily gather that colour is nothing more than, a 
modification of the image of light received on the object, re- 



BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 1 23 

suiting in the former case from the different degrees of inci- 
dence, in the latter, from the various textures and configura- 
tions of the body. It was by means of these very examples 
that Newton afterwards discovered the composition of light." 

Travelling Instances (Instantia3 Migrantes : Aph. 23) are 
such as exhibit the nature under investigation in the 
act of travelling from one point to another: namely, in 
the process of being produced when it did not previously 
exist, or on the other hand of disappearing when it existed 
before; or, lastly, in passing towards increase or decrease. 
It is plain that this Instance includes the Method of 
Concomitant Variations, but an instance exhibiting a nature 
which " travels to generation or privation," that is to say,, 
which, not having existed before, is produced, or which, having 
existed before, vanishes, falls under the head of the Method of 
Ditference. One of Bacon's examples is paper " which is 
white when dry, but when wetted (that is, when air is ex- 
cluded and water introduced) is less white and approaches 
nearer to being transparent.'"' " In reading this," says Sir 
John Herschel, "and many other examples in the' Novum 
Organum,, one would almost suppose (had it been written) that 
its author had taken them from Newton's Optics" 

Glaring, Conspicuous, or Striking histances (Instantiye 
Ostensivae or Elucescentise : Aph. 24) are such as exhibit the- 
nature under investigation, as it were " naked and standing 
by itself, and also in its exaltation or highest degree of power; 
as being disenthralled and freed from all impediments, or at any 
rate by virtue of its strength dominant over, suppressing, and 
coercing them." A happily selected example is the Thermo- 
meter (" vitrum calendare aeris," then a recent invention), as- 
exhibiting, in a striking form, the expansive power of heat. 
The Barometer (which was not known in Bacon's time, having 
been invented by Torricelli in 1643) aiFords an equally " strik- 



124 BACON. 



ing " or " glaring " instance of the weight of the atmosphere. 
The circumstance which conceals the weight of the atmo- 
sphere in ordinary cases, namely, the pressure of it in all direc- 
tions, being entirely removed, that weight produces its full 
effect, and sustains the whole column of mercury in the tube. 
Sir John Herschel cites an example of a glaring instance, 
which, besides being peculiarly interesting, possesses great 
historical importance. " The laws of crystallography were 
obscure, and its causes still more so, till Haiiy fortunately 
dropped a beautiful crystal of calcareous spar on a stone pave- 
ment and broke it. In piecing together the fragments, he 
observed their facets not to correspond with those of the 
crystal in its entire state, but to belong to another form; and, 
following out the hint offered by a ' glaring instance ' thus 
casually obtruded on his notice, he discovered the beautiful 
laws of the cleavage and the primitive forms of minerals." 

Clandestine Instances, or Instances of the Twilight, as they 
are also quaintly called (Instantise Clandestine, quas etiam 
Instantias Crepusculi appellare consuevimus : Aph. 25), are 
the opposite of Glaring Instances, being such as exhibit the 
nature under investigation " in its lowest degree of power, and 
as it were in its cradle and rudiments, striving indeed and 
making a sort of first trial, but latent under and subjected by 
a contrary nature." " Such instances, however," he adds, 
" are of very great service for the discovery of forms ; because, 
as Glaring Instances lead easily to differ entice, so Clandestine 
Instances are the best guides to genera" These instances, 
in fact, being on the extreme border of a class or phenomenon, 
serve to determine its range, just as the glaring instances, by 
exhibiting a property in its most striking form, serve to direct 
attention to its most characteristic features. Here again 
Bacon himself furnishes an excellent example, namely, cohesion 
in the case of fluids. Zoophytes would furnish a clandestine 



BACONS REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 125 

instance of animal life ; children and some of the lower animals 
of intelligence; barter amongst savages of commerce; and 
so on. 

Collective Instances (Instantiae Constitutive : Aph. 26) are 
really minor inductions, grouping" together a number of 
individual facts. They are those " axiomata infima," or axioms 
of the lowest degree of generalisation, which Bacon regarded 
as lying at the base of the inductive pyramid. Bacon (knives 
his principal examples from the faculty of memory and the 
sense of taste. But some of the examples proposed by Sir 
John Herschel* will probably afford more interest to the 
reader. " The parabolic form, assumed by a jet of water 
spouted from a round hole, is a collective instance of the veloci- 
ties and directions of the motions of all the particles which 
compose it seen at once, thus leading us, without trouble, to 
recognize the law of the motion of a projectile. Again, the 
beautiful figures, exhibited by and strewed on regular plates of 
glass or metal set in vibration, are collective instances of an 
infinite number of points which remain at rest while the 
remainder of the plate vibrates; and, in consequence, afford 
us, as it were, a sight of the law which regulates their arrange- 
ment and sequence throughout the whole surface Of 

such collective instances as these, it is easy to see the import- 
ance, and its reason. They lead us to a general law by an 
induction which offers itself spontaneously, and thus furnish 
advanced points in our inquiries; and, when we start from 
these, already e a thousand steps are lost/ w Turning to ast ro- 
nomy, " a fine example of a collective instance is that of the 
system of Jupiter or Saturn with its satellites. We have here, 
in miniature, and seen at one view, a system similar to that <•!' 
the planets about the sun; of which, from the cireumstaix e df 
our being involved in it, and unfavourably situated lor seeing 
3 Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, §§ 194-5. 



126 BACON. 



it otherwise than in detail, we are incapacitated from forming 
a general idea but by slow progressive efforts of reason. Ac- 
cordingly, the contemplation of the circumjovial planets (as 
they were called) most materially assisted in securing the 
admission of the Copernican system." 

Conformable or Parallel Instances (Instantiae Conform es : 
Aph. 27) are such as exhibit similitudes in objects or qualities 
which are in many other respects dissimilar. They are, in fact, 
Analogies. Bacon offers, amongst other examples, a looking- 
glass and the eye ; the workmanship of the ear and places 
returning an echo; the roots and branches of trees; the fins 
of fishes, the feet of quadrupeds, and the feet and wings of 
birds. Professor Playfair gives the telescope and microscope, 
in the works of art, as compared with the eye, in the works of 
nature ; basaltic rocks and the lava thrown out from volcanoes ; 
the valves in blood-vessels and the valves used in hydraulic 
engines for the purpose of preventing the counter-current of a 
fluid, by the observation of which analogy Harvey was led to 
the discovery of the circulation of the blood. " It is," I have 
said in one of my notes to this Aphorism, " by the bold use of 
analogies of thisldnd that modern physicists have been able to 
trace the correlations of the various physical forces; that 
modern philologists have been able to refer to the same fami- 
lies, languages of apparently the most dissimilar character ; and 
that modern jurists and moralists have detected in laws, insti- 
tutions, customs, and feelings amongst the most widely scat- 
tered races and at the most various stages of civilization a 
common origin and a common meaning. Though the strict 
use of logical method is indispensable to demonstration and 
verification, it is the observation of analogies, and those often 
very remote ones, that generally sets us on the track of great 
discoveries." 

Singular or Monadic Instances (Instantise Monodicae, or, as 



BA COATS REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME THOD. 1 27 

it should be written, Monadicae, Irregulares, sive Heteroclitae : 
Apli. 28) are such as exhibit phenomena " which seem to be 
out of the course (extravagantia) and broken off from the 
usual order of nature, and not agreeing* with other" phenomena 
" of the same kind." Examples given by Bacon are the sun 
and moon among stars (we must recollect that his astronomical 
views lagged far behind those of many of his contemporaries, 
who would rather have found amongst the other stars parallel 
instances to the sun and moon than have ranked these as sin- 
gular instances); the magnet amongst stones; quicksilver 
amongst metals ; the scent of hounds amongst kinds of smell; 
the letter S among letters, u on account of its easy combination 
with consonants, sometimes with two, sometimes* even with 
three." In external nature, we might adduce, as additional 
examples of Monadic Instances, Comets, Double Stars, the 
occasional crescent-shape of Venus, of Mercury, and of the 
Moon, Earthquakes, Volcanoes, Cyclones ; in law, Gavelkind 
and Borough English; in moral sentiment, Suttee, Duelling, 
the Levirate, Codes of Honour such as those which obtain 
amongst schoolboys or particular professions. Some of Bacon's 
remarks on this class of instances are highly just and philoso- 
phical. " The use of Singular Instances is the same as that 
of the Clandestine Instances, namely, to unite and extend the 
limits of nature, for the purpose of discovering genera or 
common natures, to be afterwards limited by true differences. 
For we are not to desist from inquiry, till the properties and 
qualities which are found in such things as may be takeu for 
marvels of nature be reduced and comprehended under some 
Form or fixed Law ; so that all the irregularity or singularity 
shall be found to depend on some common Form, and the 
marvel shall turn out to be only in the precise differences, and 
the degree, and the rare concurrence, and uol in the species 
itself: whereas now the thoughts of men go no further than 



128 BACON. 



to regard such things as the secrets and mighty works of 
nature, and as it were uncaused, and as exceptions to general 
rules." These reflections show a firm belief in the universality 
of Causation, and a persuasion that all so-called exceptions 
admit of some explanation in conformity with the general laws 
of nature. 

Passing over several other Instances, we come in the 36th 
Aphorism to what are far the most famous of all Bacon's 
Prserogativse Instantiarum, namely, Crucial Instances (Instan- 
tise Crucis). A "crucial instance" has become a household 
word in the English language, and is, perhaps, far more widely 
used than any other technical term of Inductive Logic. Ac- 
cording to the metaphor, there are two or more ways before 
us, and the observation or experiment in question acts as a 
" guide-post" (crux) in determining us which to take. There 
being two or more rival hypotheses, which equally well accord 
with the facts hitherto observed, we try to think of some deci- 
sive experiment or observation, which, by according with one 
of the theories, and that only, will enable us summarily to 
reject the others. " When," says Bacon, " in the investiga- 
tion of any nature the understanding is so balanced as to be 
uncertain to which of two or more natures the cause of the 
nature in question should be assigned, on account of the 
frequent and ordinary concurrence of many natures " (or, in 
other words, on account of the difficulty of disentangling from 
the mass of antecedents the one which stands in the relation 
of cause to the given effect), " Instances of the Guide-post 
show the union of one of the natures with the nature in ques- 
tion to be sure and indissoluble, of the other to be varied and 
separable , and thus the question is decided, and the former 
nature is admitted as the cause, while the latter is dismissed 
and rejected. Therefore, such instances afford very great 
light, and are of high authority ; so that the course of in- 






BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 1 29 

terpretation sometimes ends in them and is completed by 
them/' 

In a classification of logical methods, crucial instances may 
be regarded as applications of the Method of Difference. All 
other circumstances being the same, the appearance or disap- 
pearance, the existence or non-existence of some one circum- 
stance, or combination of circumstances, enables us to determine 
the question at issue. 

The simplest and most familiar examples, perhaps, of the 
employment of crucial instances are to be found in the pro- 
cesses of chemistry, as where we employ a test for the purpose 
of determining the nature of a particular substance or of detect- 
ing the presence of a particular poison. In daily life, too, we 
are constantly employing crucial instances, as where we form 
plans for testing a man's veracity or his honesty or his punc- 
tuality or the thoroughness of his work. A celebrated historical 
example of the employment of a crucial instance is that by 
which Pascal demonstrated the weight of the atmosphere. The 
phenomenon to be explained was the fact that water will not 
rise above a certain height in the common pump or mercury 
above a certain height in the barometer, which instrument had 
already been invented by Torricelli. Of this fact there were 
two explanations: one that nature's abhorrence of a vacuum 
(the old mode of accounting for a liquid rising by suction in a 
pipe) was not sufficient to act beyond a certain point \ the 
other, suggested by Torricelli, who had recently died, that the 
column of water or mercury answers to the super- incumbent 
pressure of a column of the atmosphere of equal weight. The 
fact that Torricelli's barometric column varied in height from 
day to day afforded strong evidence of the supposition that it 
measured the weight of the atmosphere, but Torricelli's death 
arrested the progress of his experiments. At this poinl they 
were taken up by Pascal, who perceived that, if Torricelli's 

K 



ISO BACON. 



were the true explanation, the height of the barometric column 
must vary with the various degrees of elevation above the 
earth's surface, sinking lower and lower as the height attained 
is greater. On the other hand, the extent of nature's abhor- 
rence of a vacuum could hardly be affected by the circumstance 
of the experiment taking place on a mountain or a plain. 
Accordingly, on the 19th of September, 1648, Pascal, who 
could not himself undertake the task, caused a decisive experi- 
ment to be made on the Puy de Dome in Auvergne. In the 
presence of numbers of persons, the barometer was carried up 
the mountain, and the column was found gradually to descend 
as the ascent was made. Moreover, the reading of the baro- 
meter at the top of the mountain was found to differ considerably 
from the simultaneous reading of a similar instrument which 
had been retained in a garden at Clermont. Nothing could 
be more satisfactory than this crucial instance, which Pascal 
himself verified by taking the barometer up the tower of St. 
Jacques de la Boucherie and other high buildings at Paris. 

Bacon's own examples of this Instance are, some of them, of 
considerable interest in the History of Science, but they would 
require too much elucidation to be conveniently stated in this 
place. 

Sometimes a crucial instance or test is of such a character 
that, if the experiment is attended by some result, something 
is proved, but if it is attended by no result, nothing is proved. 
Thus, for example, if a marked sovereign is taken from my 
room, the fact proves dishonesty on the part of some one about 
me; but, if not taken, the fact proves nothing, for the dis- 
honest person may not have been in the room or may have 
abstained on this occasion from fear of detection. It has been 
proposed to call tests of this kind unilateral. 

There are many other Prerogative Instances, some specially 



BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME THOD. 1 3 1 

adapted to the speculative, others to the operative branch of 
science, but those which I have already adduced will be suffi- 
cient to give the reader some idea of the value and interest of 
this part of the Novmn Organum. Beyond this division the 
book does not proceed. 



Part II. 

I shall now briefly consider what are the principal merits of 
the magnificent fragment which I have just been describing', 
and also endeavour to estimate the value of the various objec- 
tions which have been raised against Bacon's method of 
procedure as well as against his competence as a scientific 
reformer. Perhaps the main interest now attaching to the 
N<>r urn Organum is the historical one of its subsequent influ- 
ence on logic, philosophy, and science, a subject which I have 
discussed in a separate chapter. 4 As Macaulay finely says, 
Bacon " moved the intellects which have moved the world." 
But, inasmuch as I believe the intrinsic value of this work 
even to students of the present day, and especially to young 
students, to be very considerable, I shall briefly state the points 
wherein I conceive its merits principally to consist. These may 
be considered under two aspects. The first is its general effect 
in guarding, stimulating, and disciplining the intellect ; the 
second is the amount of definite logical doctrine comprised in 
it which still retains any permanent value. 

With regard to the first point, 6 I know no work of the same 

« See ch. 6. 

6 Much of what I here say is repeated or adapted from the loth Section 
of my Introduction to the Novum Organum. As I have stated in t lie 
Preface, I have frequently borrowed from my larger work, where I have 
thought that nothing would be gained by any new r presentation of my 
remarks or opinions. 

K 2 



132 BACON, 



kind so stimulating- to a young- reader, or so likely to foster 
habits of cautious and independent investigation, as the First 
Book of the Novum Organum. What Bacon says of Plato is 
pre-eminently true of himself. He was " a man of a sublime 
genius, who took a view of everything as from a high rock." 6 
Now to the young student nothing is of so much importance as 
to be brought into contact with works of real genius. To lay 
oneself alongside a really subtle and capacious mind is almost 
an education in itself, and there must have been many men 
who have looked back on their first acquaintance with the pro- 
found and brilliant pages of Bacon as forming one of the eras 
in their lives. Maxims such as these, " Man is the servant and 
interpreter of nature," " Human knowledge and human power 
meet in one/' "It is not fruit-bringing but light- bringing 
experiments that should be sought," " Truth is rightly called 
the daughter of time, not of authority," " The worst thing 
of all is the apotheosis of error," 7 which sparkle on almost 
every page of the Novum 0?'ganum, live long in the memory, 
•and insensibly influence our whole habit of thought. 

There is something about Bacon's diction, his quaintness of 
expression, and his" power of illustration, which lays hold of 
the mind, and lodges itself in the memory, in a way which we 
hardly find paralleled in any other author, except it be Shak- 
speare. And what are the lessons which he thus effectually 
communicates ? The duty of taking nothing upon trust which 
we can verify for ourselves, of rigidly examining our first 
principles, of being carefully on our guard against the various 
delusions arising from the peculiarities of human nature, from 

6 De Augmentis Scientiarum, book iii* ch. 4. 

7 " Homo naturae minister et interpres," " Scientia et potentia humana 
in idem coincidunt," " Lucifera experimenta, non fructifera, quserenda," 
"Becte Veritas temporis filia dicitur, non auctoritatis," " Pessima res est 
errorum apotheosis." 



BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 1 33 

our various interests and pursuits, from the force of words, and 
from the disputes and traditions of the schools ; the duty of 
forming" our conclusions slowly and of constantly checking 
them by comparison with the facts of nature and life, of 
avoiding* merely subtle and frivolous disputations, of confining 
our inquiries to questions of which the solution is within our 
power, and of subordinating* all our investigations to the wel- 
fare of man and society. Now, lessons such as these, even 
though they be stated in a somewhat exaggerated form, are 
so necessary and so useful, that an author who presents them 
in forcible and pointed language will ever retain his interest 
and utility for each succeeding generation of learners. This 
educational value of the Novum Organwn has never, I think, 
been sufficiently pointed out, but it seems to me very real and 
very important. 

As regards the second point, the amount of definite logical 
teaching in the Novum Organum which retains a permanent 
value, much misconception prevails, and much injustice has 
been done to the author. Some of Bacon's critics, especially 
Baron Liebig, whose diatribe 8 affords an example of literary 
animosity which is fortunately rare in recent times, condemn 

8 Ueber Francis Bacon von Verulam und die Methode der JVafur- 
forschung, von Justus von Liebig. Miinehen, 1863. This pamphlet is 
written in a tone of such shrill invective, that it almost seems as if Bacon 
had been a personal enemy of the writer. In addition to its extreme 
bitterness, it is often very inaccurate, and does not, as it appears to me, 
in any way conduce to the knowledge or appreciation of Bacon's system. 
It was published in an English form in Macmillan's Magazine for July 
and August, 1863, and has been translated into French by M. de 
Tchihatchef, whose blunders show a singular incompetence for dealing 
with the History of Science and Philosophy. Some of Bacon's recent 
crities in England appear unfortunately to have borrowed their weapons 
of offence mainly from Liebig'fl pamphlet. I shall speak again of the 
adverse critics of Bacon's method and philosophy towards the close of this 
chapter. 



i 3 4 BACON. 



almost all his logical precepts as antiquated or worthless. 
Their principal charges against Bacon as a reformer or pre- 
tending reformer of scientific method and their objections to 
his procedure, I shall examine presently. But I shall first 
point out what I conceive to be some of his positive merits. 
That the Novum Organum is not a complete treatise on Induc- 
tive Logic, and that many of its rules require explanation or 
revision, must of course be acknowledged. This is only to 
say that it was written two and a half centuries ago, and that 
it needs a commentary, either oral or printed. But the best 
introduction to a subject is often found to be through some 
historical monument which is less formal and technical than 
modern text-books, and which displays the efforts of genius in 
attempting to understand and overcome the fundamental pro- 
blems and difficulties of the science. It is on these grounds 
that many persons regard the writings of Aristotle and Plato 
as forming the best introduction to the study of philosophy, 
and it is on the same grounds that I venture to suggest that 
the study of the inductive branch of scientific method might 
well begin with the Novum Organum of Bacon, 

Amongst the positive merits of this work, regarded as con- 
taining a body of precepts for the conduct of scientific inquiry, 
I may specially draw attention to the following points : — 

(1) The constant emphasis with which it dwells on the 
necessity of a thorough acquaintance with the facts of nature, 
as the only sure preservative against the delusions of fancy or 
prejudice and the misleading influence of authority. " Man 
is the servant and interpreter of nature/'' " We can only 
conquer nature, by first obeying her/'' 9 Hence the great im- 
portance which Bacon always attaches to the construction of 
what he calls a Natural History. 1 This was to be a collection 

9 Natura non nisi parendo vincitur, book i. aph. 3. 
1 See, for instance, Nov. Org. book i, aph. 98. 



BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME THOD. 1 3 5 

of facts of all kinds, whether bearing" on man or on external 
nature, specially adapted to the wants of Natural Philosophy, 
and containing a record of experiments as well as observations. 
(2) The importance of not contenting" ourselves with mere 
observation, but of also instituting, where possible, artificial 
experiments for the purpose of obtaining more precise answers 
to our questions, is another point which Bacon brings forcibly 
before his readers. " For even as in civil matters a man's 
disposition and the secret working's of his mind and affections 
are better discovered when he is put in pain than at other 
times ; so likewise the secrets of nature reveal themselves more 
readily under the vexations of art than when they go their 
own way."" 2 The Second Book of the Novum Organum, as well 
as some of Bacon's minor works, affords several instances of 
ingeniously devised experiments, often, however, proposed 
rather than effected. I may adduce as an example the remark- 
able experiment, described in Nov. Org. book ii. aph. 45, the 
object of which was to determine the question of the compres- 
sibility or incompressibility of water by confining it in a 
leaden globe and then subjecting the globe to extreme pres- 
sure. This experiment has every appearance of having been 
original, and certainly preceded by nearly fifty years the cele- 
brated experiment of a similar nature with a silver globe, 
usually called the Florentine experiment, made by the Acca- 
demia del Cimento at Florence. Both experiments were, as 
we now know, inconclusive, from the fact of the water exuding 
through the pores of the metals, but this circumstance does 
not detract from the ingenuity of conception which suggested 
them. The conclusion of the Florentine Academy was that 

• Xov. Org. book i. aph. 98. For the differences between the two 
processes of observation and experiment, and the advantages which the 
latter possesses, in many respects, over the former, see Mill's Logic, book 
iii. ch. 7, or my Inductive Logic, ch. 2, § 1. 



1 3 6 BACON. 



water is incompressible, that of Bacon that it is compressible. 
The truth of the latter inference has now been fully demon- 
strated by Canton, Oersted, and others. 

(3) On this wide and varied basis of facts Bacon proposed 
to rear scientific inductions, as opposed to the mere enumera- 
tions of facts (Inductio per enumerationem simplicem) which 
were common in his time. The very conception of a scien- 
tific process of induction, proceeding" by way of selection and 
elimination, is one which is even now by no means universal 
amongst men of information and culture, though it is most 
important that it should be thoroughly grasped by every 
student, whether of logic, philosophy, or science. 

It is true that the Tables and the Method of Exclusions by 
which Bacon proposes mainly to work out his conception are 
cumbrous and, in the precise form in which they are stated by 
him, not always effective, but they easily admit of being 
corrected and re-stated so as greatly to elucidate the true and 
fruitful processes of Induction. But of more intrinsic value 
than this early part of the Second Book, as it seems to me, 
are some of the " Prerogative Instantiarum." Many of the 
expressions employed for the purpose of designating them still 
form part of our logical terminology, and it would be very 
difficult, in many cases, to describe, more aptly and precisely 
than Bacon does, the nature of the reasoning involved in them. 
The scientific examples are, generally, far too numerous, and 
(notwithstanding the value or interest attaching to some of 
them) are often wrongly stated, trivial, or inappropriate, but it 
appears to me that less attention than it deserves has been 
paid to the logical matter contained in this part of Bacon's 
work. 

(4) Nor does Bacon neglect to point out the proper relation 
between the inductive and deductive processes of reasoning. 
From the often reiterated emphasis with which he insists on 



BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 1 37 

the necessity of employing 1 and reforming 1 induction, the great 
need of his time, it has frequently been supposed that he 
slighted deduction as an instrument of thought, and regarded 
the inductive process as alone sufficient to supply us with all 
the truth we require. But this was by no means the case. 
The syllogism, he conceived, was indeed incompetent to esta- 
blish the first principles from which it reasons, but, when 
these were once firmly established by induction on the basis 
of experience, it was perfectly competent to reason correctly 
•from them. When the higher axioms have been constituted 
by induction, they should be developed deductively into all 
their consequences, and then ultimately, if they admit of it, 
applied to practice. 3 Even the mathematical form which the 
deductive branch assumes in the more advanced sciences is 
fully recognized by Bacon, and its proper position assigned to 
it. "Mathematics ought to terminate Natural Philosophy, 
not to generate it." " Natural inquiries have the best issue, 
when physics are terminated in mathematics." 4 

(5) Bacon distinctly sees that the real object of science is 
the ascertainment of causes or facts of causation. " It is 
rightly laid down that to know truly, is to know by means of 
causes." 6 Hence his insistance on the importance of a know- 
ledge of the Form, by which, as we have seen, he understood 
practically what we understand by cause. 

(6) He reads a valuable lesson also, when he insists on the 
unity of nature and the unity of science. Nature, he conceives, 

8 Sed axiomata, a particularibus rite et ordine abstracta, nova particu- 
lars rursus facile indicant et designant ; itaque scientiaa reddunt actiyaa. 
Book i. aph. 24 Cp. book ii. aph. 10. 

4 Mathematica philosophiam naturalem terminare, non generare aut 
procreare debet. Book i. aph. 96. Optimo antem cedit inquisitio naturalis, 
quando physicum terminatur in mathematical Hook ii. aph. 8. 

5 BectC ponitur : vere scire, esse per causas scire. Book ii. aph. 2. Cp. 
Aristotle's Posterior Analytics, book i. ch. ii. ad init. 



i 3 8 BACON. 



is a continuous and orderly whole, admitting of no breaks 
and no exceptions. Objects and qualities apparently the most 
heterogeneous are often united under the same Form, or, as we 
might say, are manifestations of the same law (Book ii. aph. 
17); and he who best knows the ways of nature, also best 
knows her deviations (Book ii. aph. 29). Similarly, to know 
any one science really well, a man must know at least the 
general aspects and fundamental principles of all sciences. 
For the individual sciences are like the branches of a tree 
which meet in one trunk, and each science must suffer if rudely 
dissevered from the rest.e Of course, this maxim must not 
be pressed too far, or else our knowledge would be in danger 
of becoming merely vague and superficial, but much faulty 
reasoning and many confused ideas doubtless have their 
origin in the limited vision of the specialist. These defects it 
is the special object of logic and philosophy to remedy. 

(7) I may remark, lastly, that Bacon's classification of 
Fallacies (Idola) is an original and valuable contribution to 
that department of Logic which deals with the types of incor- 
rect rather than of correct reasoning. 

I shall now proceed to consider some of the principal objec- 
tions which have been directed against the method of scientific 
investigation delineated in the Novum Organum as well as 
against Bacon's competence to act in the capacity of a reformer 
of science and scientific method. 

6 See 'Novum Organum, book i. aphs. 79, 80 ; De Augmentis Scien- 
tiarum, book iii. ch. 1; Advancement of Learning, book ii. I have 
been obliged to describe these thoughts in somewhat general terms, as the 
functions ascribed to the Philosophia Prima in the De Augmentis and 
the Advancement of Learning seem to be ascribed to Natural Philosophy 
(" magna ista scientiarum mater ") in the Novum Organum, and yet this 
word is also used in this same book in a more restricted sense. I have 
discussed these difficulties in my notes on book i. aphs. 79, 80. 



A I CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME THOD. 1 39 

Three of the objections may conveniently be considered 
together, inasmuch as an estimate of their value depends on a 
previous consideration of the true character of the inductive 
process. These are: (1) that Bacon's theory of induction is 
far too mechanical, attaching' too much importance to rules 
and formulae ; (2) that he ignores or unduly neglects hypothe- 
sis ; (3) that his conception of a gradual ascent from axioms 
of the lowest to axioms of the highest degree of generality 
does not correspond with the actual conduct of scientific inves- 
tigation, nor would any advantage be derived from its being 
realized. It will be found that there is a considerable amount 
of force in these objections, especially in the two latter ones, 
but I can only state my own position in reference to them by 
previously describing and comparing the two different theories 
of induction as now commonly held. According to one of 
these, we begin by observing a number of facts or creating 
facts for ourselves by way of experiment, and then proceed to 
form certain theories or assumptions for the purpose of explain- 
ing their occurrence. These theories or assumptions are called 
hypotheses. If they satisfactorily explain the phenomena 
known to us, they ma}' be accepted as provisionally true. But 
we should constantly be on the look-out for new facts, which 
may either confirm, destroy, or modify our hypotheses. If our 
original hypothesis, or a subsequent modification of it, con- 
tinues to stand this test, and, still more, if calculations based 
upon it enable us to predict the future, and, most of all, if it 
enables us to explain not only facts of the same kind as those 
which suggested its formation, but also facts of a different 
kind from those which were then contemplated, we may feel 
certain, or almost certain, that it is a valid induction, correctly 
explaining the phenomena under investigation. This is the 
theory of Induction advocated by Dr. Whewellj and. more 
recently, by Professor Jevons — with this difference, however* 



140 BACON, 



that Dr. Whewell regards the results as certain, Professor 
Jevons only as " almost certain." Both alike deny the possi- 
bility of applying more stringent methods. And, if more 
stringent methods are inapplicable, I cannot but think that 
Professor Jevons arrives at the true conclusion, when he main- 
tains that all inductive inference is merely probable and can 
never attain to certainty. This conclusion is, however, directly 
opposed to the convictions, not only of mankind at large, but 
of the great mass of scientific inquirers, most of whom would 
doubtless be somewhat startled if they heard the laws of astro- 
nomy, mechanics, or chemistry described merely as "highly 
probable." The other theory of induction is that advocated 
by Mr. Mill, and, as I believe, implicitly assumed by nearly all 
competent reasoners in the various branches of inductive in- 
vestigation. It is that by the employment of stringent 
methods of elimination we may give our inductions the force 
of demonstration, and that there are methods of this kind 
whose conditions it is, under certain circumstances, possible to 
satisfy. Mr. Mill propounds such methods in his well-known 
Canons of the Experimental Methods. This theory does not 
deny or ignore the importance of hypothesis as stimulating 
and directing inquiry, but it refuses to accept any hypothesis 
as a sufficient explanation or, in other words, as a valid induc- 
tion, till it has satisfied some more stringent condition of 
verification than that of mere conformity with facts whether 
observed or predicted. 7 Now Bacon, I conceive, had hit upon 
a perfectly sound and very fertile idea, when he represented to 
himself the possibility of laying down rules by which inductive 
reasoning might possess the force of demonstration (Novum 

7 For a further statement of my opinions on these questions, see the 
Preface to the Third Edition of my Inductive Logic, and also pp. 
113—119, 209—213 of the same edition of that work. 



BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME TIIOD. 1 4 1 

Organum, book i. aphs. 105, 122). Nor did he make by any 
means contemptible essays, especially in the Prerogative 
Instantiarum, towards furnishing* such rules. But, when lie 
maintains (as he does in Aph. 122) that his method will almost 
equalize the intellectual capacities of mankind, and enable 
ordinary men to arrive at correct inductions much in the same 
way that they now draw a circle with a pair of compasses, he 
is advancing not only a paradox, but a delusive, and possibly 
a mischievous, paradox. There is not, and there never can be, 
a mechanical method of invention, furnishing rules whereby 
men of average abilities may invent arts or make discoveries 
with the same facility and certainty with which they use a 
mathematical instrument. The reason of such impossibility, 
as I have said in one of my notes on this Aphorism, is to be 
sought not only in the complexity and " subtlety" of nature 
(which Bacon thought to be much simpler than it is) and in 
the laborious and complicated character of many of the pro- 
cesses of reasoning 1 , but also in the important and, indeed, 
indispensable share which imagination has in all scientific dis- 
covery. It is then on account of these exaggerated statements, 
I take it, and not because he conceived the possibility of devis- 
ing an inductive process guided by rules and resulting in cer- 
tainty, that Bacon deserves the reproach of having formed too 
mechanical a theory of induction. The office of the imagina- 
tion (a faculty in which he was himself so marvellously rich) is 
undoubtedly too much depreciated, or rather ignored, through- 
out the Novum Organum. And hence it is that he saj 
little of hypothesis. Except in Book i. aph. lOo and Hook ii. 
aph. 20, this indispensable aid of the greater part of our 
inductive reasoning is hardly ever referred to. The wild 
licence of imagination exemplified in so many of the scientific 
writers of his time naturally caused an extreme recoil against 



142 BACON. 



hasty generalisation and theories which seemed to be in advance 
of the facts. It was this same feeling, doubtless, which 
suggested to Bacon the oft-repeated maxim that induction 
should proceed from particulars to axioms of a very low degree 
of generalisation (axiomata infima), and thence slowly and 
gradually, through successive stages of intermediate axioms 
(axiomata media), up to the highest axioms of all (axiomata 
maxime generalia), and that we should never arrive at these 
last, or indeed at any axioms of any high degree .of generality, 
by sudden leaps. But this method of gradual and continuous 
ascent is not the method which, for the most part, has been 
actually pursued by the most successful interrogators of Nature, 
nor would its general adoption contribute to the advancement 
of science. If the inquirer sees his way at once to a bold and 
sweeping theory, there can be no objection to his passing over 
the intermediate steps of the induction, providing that he after- 
wards submit his theory to the most rigorous examination, and 
. resist the temptation of accepting it as a final explanation till 
it has been duly verified by stringent methods of proof. 
Though, however, this more ambitious process is a common 
and a perfectly legitimate method of discover?/, the proof of the 
higher axioms, when established, will generally be found to 
rest on intermediate axioms, and of these on still lower axioms, 
and so on, after the manner which Bacon describes. Moreover, 
when a science has attained anything like completeness, this 
will always be found to be the most convenient method of 
exhibiting the relation of its various laws. In Whewell's 
Novum Organum Renovahtm, a table of this kind is given, 
showing the successive inductions on which the theory of 
Universal Gravitation rests, and, in this case, it is curious to 
remark that the order of discovery followed almost exactly the 
present order of proof. Though stated too exclusively, there- 
fore, this part of Bacon's doctrine is by no means so untrue to 



BA COATS REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME TIIOD. I 45 



facts or to the reason of the thing as it has sometimes been 
represented to be. 1 

Another objection frequently taken to Bacon's conception of 
scientific method is that it disparages or ignores the deductive 
side. That this objection is unfounded, I have already shown 
on pp. 136, 137. 

The objection that Bacon in his statements on Forms and 
in his Tables overlooks the circumstance of Plurality of Causes 
has also been already mentioned. But there is one passage in 
the Novum Organum (book ii.aph. 23), where he seems explicitly 
to recognize Plurality of Causes, and, moreover, we must 
recollect that Form may in some places be more accurately 
replaced by the word Essence than by the word Cause, in 
which cases the objection does not hold. The difficulty, how- 
ever, occasioned to the reader by the undefined and vacillating 
use of this word Form is itself, it must be confessed, a serious 
blot on the work. 

Perhaps this is the most convenient place for considering 
one of the main peculiarities of Bacon's system, namely, his 
rejection of the inquiry into Final Causes in Physics, and the 
exceptions taken to it on this ground. The " Final Cause " is 
one of the " four causes " of Aristotle, and signifies " the where- 
fore " (to ov eveica) or * the end " (to reXos) for which a thing 
exists. Aristotle assumed that every object has such an end 
(" Nature does nothing in vain "), and, apparently also, that 
we are competent to ascertain it. These assumptions were 
common amongst his successors, and were generally accepted 
in Bacon's time. No account of any natural object or opera- 
tion was supposed to be complete unless it assigned its end or 

8 For further remarks on this subject, see my notes on Nuv, Org. 
book i. aph. 19. 



144 BACON. 



final cause. No\» Bacon did not propose to banish this 
inquiry altogether, but to relegate it from Physic, which he 
supposed to be concerned solely with Material and Efficient 
Causes, to what he called Metaphysic, which was to inquire 
into Formal and Final Causes. The consequence of its con- 
sideration in Physics, he maintained, had been to expel from 
that branch of knowledge the inquiry into physical causes, and 
so to give men an excuse for resting in these " specious and 
shadowy " causes, instead of pressing on their inquiry into 
causes the existence and action of which they could verify. 
In Metaphysic such an inquiry might be proper, but in Physic 
it was impertinent (Be Atogm. iii. 4). For in physics we want 
to know how and from what conditions a thing is produced, 
not what object it subserves in the economy of nature. More- 
over, the inquiry into Final Causes results in no works or in- 
ventions (an idea always uppermost in Bacon's mind), being like 
a virgin consecrated to the service of God (Be Augm. iii. 5). 

This metaphor, which I believe Bacon employs quite 
seriously and not with the slightest intention of banter, may 
perhaps best disclose to us his point of view. We may, he 
conceived, legitimately attempt to ascertain (and the attempt, 
though it may here and there fail in particular instances, will 
be crowned with more or less of success) the ends and objects 
of the various parts of nature, their relations to one another, 
and the harmony of the whole, and so rise to some conception, 
however faint, of the power, wisdom, and goodness of Him 
who framed the Universe. " That there is a God, that he holds 
the reins of things, that he is all-powerful, that he is wise and 
fore-knowing, that he is good . . . may be proved to demonstra- 
tion even from his works" (Be Augm. iii. 2). But then this 
inquiry must remain consecrated to the service of God. As 
soon as it intrudes into the province of Physics, it is attended 
with no results; nay, rather, as it diverts the mind from the 



BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 145 

inquiry into efficient and material causes, the proper object 
of physics, it becomes positively baneful. 

I conceive, therefore, that in the sphere of what we should 
call Natural Theology, Bacon would have approved and en- 
couraged the inquiry into Final Causes, but that he proposed 
to banish it altogether from the domain of Physics. Such an 
exclusion was, I believe, far too rig-id and absolute. It is 
certainly a curious commentary on his procedure that, at the 
very time when he was composing the Novum Organum, 
Harvey was employing this very mode of reasoning in the 
famous researches which resulted in the discovery of the circu- 
lation of the blood. Nor would any one, I presume, now 
deny that the idea of function, which implies so much of the 
idea of Final Cause as is included in the word adaptation as 
distinct from design, is a conception absolutely essential to the 
successful prosecution of at least one science, that of physiology. 
And, even in the higher sciences of psychology, ethics, and 
politics, there are few inquirers who can avoid from time to 
time asking the question, what purpose does such and such a 
constituent subserve in the mental, moral, or social economy. 
In chemistry, mineralogy, and those branches of science to 
which the word " physics " is often restricted, such inquiries 
are much rarer, but I question whether there is any single 
science, other than mathematical, from which the idea of 
adaptation can be strictly and consistently excluded. How 
we are to interpret the fact of adaptation is a different question, 
and one which, by the majority of scientific inquirers, would 
now be answered in a very different fashion from what ever 
occurred to any but a few isolated thinkers in previous genera- 
tions. It is enough here simply to allude to the theory of 
Evolution, and to works such as those of Mr. Darwin, Mr. 
Wallace, and Mr. Herbert Spencer. To prevent, however, 
any misconception of my own opinions, I may, perhaps, repeat 

L 



146 BACON. 



what I have already said in another place, that the main drift 
of the arguments employed in Natural Theology is not affected 
by the modern theoy of Evolution. If I may be allowed to 
quote myself, " I am far from denying" that the Argument 
from Final Causes, if it take sufficient account of the evolution 
of organisms and their power of adapting themselves to ex- 
ternal circumstances, and if it be based on the contemplation 
of Nature as a whole, instead of on that of individual objects, 
may not admit of being stated in such a form as to occupy 
once more an important position in any scheme of Natural 
Theology. Bearing in mind these qualifications, it may be 
perfectly legitimate to speak, with reference to the universe 
at large, of design and a designer, whatever may have been 
the agency, and however mysterious and prolonged the process, 
by which an intelligent Creator may have worked. Theories 
of evolution may be so stated as not to impair, but indefinitely 
to exalt, our ideas of the power, wisdom, and benevolence of 
the Being in whom Nature had its source." 

In defence, however, of Bacon's undiscriminating rejection 
of the consideration of Final Causes in physical inquiries, it 
ought to be pleaded that the use of this topic in ancient and 
mediaeval philosophy, as well as in the writings of his con- 
temporaries, was often arbitrary, fanciful, and absurd to the 
last degree. " The handling of final causes," had certainly 
"intercepted the severe and diligent inquiry of all real and 
physical causes," and it might well be maintained that their 
temporary expulsion, could it have been effected, would have 
been a real service to science. As it was, I believe that the 
protest of Bacon and Descartes, who was as little tolerant as 
Bacon himself of this mode of explaining physical phenomena, 
exerted a decidedly wholesome influence on the scientific pro- 
cedure of their successors. 9 

t 

9 I have discussed the question of Final Causes generally, and given 



BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 147 

These, so far as I can recall them, are the main objections 
taken to Bacon's method or to his exposition of it. There are 
two other objections of a more miscellaneous kind which I 
must not pass over in silence. His method, it is sometimes 
said, was not original. And again it has been said that his 
own ignorance of the best contemporary science was so great, 
that he was thereby disqualified from assuming the office 
either of a reformer of science or of a reformer of scientific 
method. 

As respects the originality of Bacon's method, the indiscreet 
praise of some of his admirers, who speak sometimes as if he 
had invented Induction and as if there had been no experi- 
mental philosophy before the appearance of his works, has 
naturally led to a reaction equally exaggerated. In my Intro- 
duction to the Novum Organum (§ 13), I have endeavoured at 
some length to distinguish the points in which his method 
and teaching had already been anticipated and those wherein 
he may fairly claim the merit of originality. Here I can only 
find space for a very brief summary of the results there arrived 
at. That Induction of some kind or other, and, consequently, 
the collection and examination of facts, is as old as human 
reasoning itself, I have already remarked at the beginning of 
this chapter. And, as I have also said there, the recognition 
of induction by philosophers as the proper method of establish- 
ing first principles dates back at least as far as the time of 
Aristotle, if not of Plato and Socrates. Moreover, not only 
did Aristotle often show in practice considerable skill in select- 
ing his instances (though it must be confessed that he often 
showed equal carelessness), but there are isolated passages in his 

several instances of those assigned, often absurdly enough, bj old writers, 
in my Inductive Logic, 3rd ed. pp. 336 — 351. The reader who wishes 
to see Bacon's position in relation to this question examined at greater 
length may refer to § 10 of my Introduction to the Novum Organum. 

L 2 



148 BACON. 



writings from which it might be argued that he had even formed 
the conception of the possibility of framing methods of elimi- 
nation. But these passages are so brief, and the remarks 
contained in them so incidental, that they hardly affect the 
general statement, so frequently made by writers on the history 
of philosophy or logic, that the sole form of induction recog- 
nized by Aristotle was that per emimerationem simplicem. 
Experiments he appears to have tried but rarely, though his 
physiological works show that he was aware of the importance 
of them. His psychological doctrine of the ultimate origin 
of knowledge in the perceptions of the senses and his logical 
doctrine of the ultimate dependence of the major premiss of 
a syllogism on previous inductions were admirably calculated 
to keep alive, even amongst the most dogmatic of his succes- 
sors, some regard for the observation and collection of natural 
facts. Accordingly, it would be easy to multiply passages, 
even from mediaeval writers, which appeal to experience as 
the ultimate test of truth in speculations on nature, which 
extol the office of induction, and which contain records of 
experiments as well as observations. Albert the Great and 
our own Roger Bacon (who has many points of resemblance 
with his later namesake) are specially to be remarked as pre- 
cursors of a more liberal and scientific age. But so abstract 
and dogmatic was the ordinary course of speculation, and so 
intense was the reverence for authority, throughout the Middle 
Ages, that these maxims bore little fruit, and were well-nigh 
buried under the mass of theological, metaphysical, and com- 
mentatorial literature in which those times abounded. The 
Revival of Letters was marked by a strong reaction, amounting 
sometimes to a shrill invective, against the principle of authority, 
and this reaction generally took the form of an exaggerated, 
not infrequently an unintelligent, attack on the philosophy of 
Aristotle. The climax of this rebellion against the authority 



BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC MF TIIOD. 149 

of the great philosopher was reached by Ramus (one of the 
victims in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572) who is 
said, perhaps inaccurately, to have selected as the thesis for 
his Master of Arts'' Degree at Paris the position that all the 
statements of Aristotle are false. 1 As opposed to authority, 
and especially the authority of Aristotle, many of the writers 
of this time exhort their readers to have recourse to their 
senses, to experience, to nature. Some even of those who were 
most ready to give play to their own imaginations combat 
with vehemence the fancies and arbitrary hypotheses of other 
philosophers, as resting on no basis of facts. And a few, who 
had specially devoted themselves to physical researches (of 
whom a conspicuous example is to be found in William Gilbert, 
the author of the treatise on the Magnet), not only warmly 
commend the recourse to artificial experiments in theory, but 
successfully adopt it in practice. But, so far as I can ascer- 
tain, no one had yet pronounced himself even on these topics 
with so much point and force, or in a manner so well calculated 
to lay hold of the popular sympathy, as Bacon, while, with 
respect to the fertile conception of a scientific and methodical 
process of induction, as opposed to that then in vogue, I have 
found nothing in any previous writer which can properly and 
fairly be said to be an anticipation of the suggestions so 
abundantly scattered throughout the Novum Organ tun. 

With respect to the second objection, that Bacon was not 
fully abreast of the scientific knowledge of his own day, I fear 
an equally satisfactory answer can not be given." Much is 
doubtless to be said in extenuation, but an impartial judge 
can only advise a plea of u Guilty M on many of the counts in 

1 On the Reaction against the Authority of Aristotle, see § 12 of my 
Introduction to the Novum Qrganum. 

• For a more detailed examination of this question, see §0 of my Intro- 
duction to the Novum Oryanum. 



ISO BACON. 



the indictment. He makes no mention of Harvey's great dis- 
covery of the Circulation of the Blood, though Harvey had 
already begun to teach it in 1619, the year before the appear- 
ance o£ the Novum Organum, It may here, however, be 
pleaded in extenuation that most of Harvey's contemporaries, 
even in his own profession, regarded his theory as hardly 
worthy of serious discussion. Aubrey, in his Lives, tells us 
that " after his booke of the Circulation of the Blood came out 
[in 1628], he fell mightily in his practice, and 'twas believed 
by the vulgar that he was crack-brained ; and all the physi- 
tians were against his opinion, and envyed him/' Again, 
Bacon appears never to have heard of the astronomical disco- 
veries recently made by means of Kepler's calculations, and he 
was singularly ignorant of many facts both in the theory and 
the history of Mathematics and Mechanics. We must recollect, 
however, that the communication of discoveries was much 
slower in those days than at present, and that the publication 
of discoveries by means of memoirs or books was often delayed 
for many years. Thus, much has been said about Bacon's 
ignorance of Galileo's experiments on Falling Bodies, made at 
Pisa between 1589 — 1592. But, though these experiments 
were undoubtedly known to many scientific men, Galileo did not 
publish any account of them till the appearance of his Dia- 
logues in 1632. As to his silence with regard to Kepler, it is 
curious that it is shared with Descartes, and, though Bacon 
was probably ignorant of Kepler's writings, Descartes cannot 
well have been. To return to the indictment, he was evidently 
a believer not only in Natural but in Judicial Astrology, 
though with a certain amount of hesitation and discrimination. 
He accepted, without question, the Peripatetic doctrine of the 
transmutability of the elements, and was a firm believer in 
the possibility of transmuting metals. This latter error, how- 
ever, if such it be, which is often so much insisted on by the 



BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME THOD. 1 5 1 

more hostile critics of Bacon's philosophy, was maintained 
many years afterwards by Boyle, whose special business was 
with this class of questions, and treated without disrespect by 
Newton. Absurd, moreover, as are some of the recipes for 
conducting the operation, the thing itself is not beyond the 
bounds of possibility. " There was a time," says Faraday, 3 
" when this fundamental doctrine of the alchemists was op- 
posed to known analogies. It is now no longer so opposed to 
them, only some stages beyond their present development." 
The Sylva Sylvarum, from which Bacon's critics draw largely 
and of which, as we have seen, 4 Bacon himself said that " he 
should better have served the glory of his own name, if he 
had not published it/' contains a number of fancies so ab- 
surd that hardly any one who can read and write would now 
give any credence to them. 5 On Bacon's behalf, however, it 
may be pleaded that to believe in fancies of this kind was one 
of the common characteristics of his age, and that probably no 
man "of that time was altogether free from them. But far the 
most important and, perhaps at first sight, the least excusable 
of Bacon's scientific errors was his persistent rejection of the 
Copernican theory. It seems mdeed strange that one who 
laid claim to be the great reformer of science should have 
steadily refused +0 admit the greatest reform in scientific con- 
ceptions which had been proposed for many generations, and 
which had already been before the world for eighty years. 
And, undoubtedly, the discovery by Galileo of the satellites of 
Jupiter in 1609, as well as the calculations of Kepler announced 
about the same time (with which last, however, Bacon does 
not seem to have been acquainted), had considerably added to 

8 Lectures on Non-Metallic Elements, p. 106. 
* See p. 35. 

6 Some specimens are given in my description of the Sylva Sylvarum 
on pp. 35, 36. 



i 5 2 BACON. 



the evidence in favour of the heliocentric system, even while 
the Novum Organum was being" written. Still, it cannot be 
said that, till the laws of formal astronomy were connected by 
Newton with the physical laws of matter and motion, the 
motions of the earth or its relation to the rest of the solar 
system could in any way be regarded as placed beyond the 
range of dispute. In Bacon's time, and especially during the 
earlier period of his life, men might well be excused who sus- 
pended their judgment, or who even preferred to adhere to the 
old assumption till their objections to the new theory were 
removed. And Bacon certainly did not stand alone in his 
opposition, among the eminent men of that age. Among those 
of his contemporaries who rejected the Copernican theory 
were Tycho Brahe (who, however, having died in 1601, did 
not live to become acquainted with the discoveries of Galileo), 
Vieta, the greatest mathematician of the 16th century (who, 
however, also died as early as 1603), Clavius, who was em- 
ployed by Gregory XIII. to reform the Calendar and was 
called the Euclid of his age, and possibly, from his silence, 
the famous mechanician, Stevinus. 6 The history of Bacon's 
attitude towards this question appears, from a comparison of 
various passages in his works, to have been much as follows. 
In early life, like the majority, probably, of even his scientific 
contemporaries, he seems to have conceived a strong prejudice 
against the Copernican theory. In middle life, he wavered 
for a time, or, at least, felt some hesitation, though never, I 
believe, to the extent of adopting the theory of the earth's 
motion. The reasons against the theory, probably, appeared 
to him more and more decisive, till at last, with advancing 

6 Further information on this subject will be found in Delambre, 
Sistoire de V Astronomie Moderne, and in two most interesting papers 
contributed by the late Professor De Morgan to the Companion to the 
British Almanac for 1836 and 1855 respectively. 



BA CONS REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME THOD. 1 5 3 

age, he became positive in his opposition to it. Now, surely, 
this is a piece of mental history so common, and one to which 
we are all in turn so liable, that, before casting* our stone at 
Bacon, we may at least pause to consider the circumstances of 
his age, the attitude with respect to the same question assumed 
by his contemporaries, and the amount of evidence by which 
the doctrine he rejected was at that time supported. To 
parallel cases there is no limit, but I may specially mention 
the tenacity with which the Cambridge mathematicians ad- 
hered to the Cartesian system long after the publication of New- 
ton's discoveries (which, unlike those of Copernicus, possessed 
demonstrative force), the slow rate at which those discoveries 
were received on the continent of Europe, and the obstinate 
resistance offered by Leibnitz to the Newtonian doctrine of 
Gravitation. Not only are we liable to ascribe to a theory 
now fully established a degree of perfection and an amount of 
evidence which it did not at first possess, and then express our 
surprise that it was not at once universally welcomed, but we 
are also given to assume that the almost superstitious reve- 
rence with which we now invest the great names of the past 
ought to have exercised an equal influence over their contem- 
poraries. 

Notwithstanding these grave examples of deficiency of 
judgment or information, it must be urged, on the other side, 
that the wealth of illustration exhibited in the Novum Organum 
and the vast range of subjects reviewed in the Be Augment** 
show a width of knowledge and an universality of interest 
which were probably unequalled in the case of any other man 
then living. What Bacon gained in width, he, of course, to a 
certain extent, lost in depth ; for this is the universal law of 
the human intellect. He was not, and did not pretend to he, 
a Specialist. His business was, so to speak, with the philoso- 
phy and logic of science, rather than with the body of science 



54 BACON. 



itself; what he hoped to do, was not so much to advance 
science in his own person, as to impel others to the work, and 
to point out to them the goal at which they were to aim and 
the means by which they were to attain it. That he was, to 
a large extent, successful in this mission, I hope to show in a 
subsequent chapter. 7 At the same time, though it is only when 
we consider science in its totality that we can assign Bacon 
his due place in its history, it would be an injustice to him not 
to notice that, even in the particular sciences, he threw out 
many suggestions of rare sagacity, and, in a certain sense, 
anticipated more recent discoveries. Such were his specula- 
tions on Colour, his anticipation of the recent theory of Heat, 
his experiment on the compressibility of water, and his won- 
derful appreciation of the combined unity and variety in Nature, 
already referred to in this chapter. To these instances may 
be added his sagacious and possibly fertile suggestion of a 
closer union between formal and physical astronomy, as well 
as of the necessity of combining the explanations of celestial 
and terrestrial phenomena ; the remarkable passage on Attrac- 
tion, and the ingenious experiment proposed in connexion with 
it, in Nov. Org. ii. 36 (3); the brilliant conjecture, in Nov, 
Org. ii. 46, that the actual state of the starry sky precedes by 
an interval of time that which is apparent to us, or, in other 
words, that light requires time for its transmission ; the im- 
plied criticism of the ordinary doctrine of species contained in 
a passage on Realism in Nov. Org. i. 66 ; and lastly (though 
this list is by no means exhaustive) the attempt made in the 
Historia Ventorum to consider the direction of the winds in 
connexion with temperature and aqueous phenomena, on which 
Humboldt highly compliments him as having thereby laid the 
foundations of a theory of the currents of the atmosphere. 
When we add to these claims on the recognition of scientific 

* See ch. 6. 



BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME THOD. 1 5 5 

men, in the narrower sense of that term, the fact that in 
another department of knowledge, that of mind and conduct, 
Bacon's contributions, as I hope to show in the next chapter, 
were neither few nor unimportant, the contention that he was 
unfitted to set up as a reformer of scientific method, because 
he knew next to nothing* of science and was incapable of 
making any discoveries of his own, may surely be disallowed. 

It has been the fate of Bacon, while his merits have often 
been unduly exaggerated, to be attacked by his critics with 
singular and persistent bitterness. Passing over the earlier 
onslaughts on his system, 8 some of which were of an exceed- 
ingly scurrilous description, I may mention some of the prin- 
cipal attempts made to damage his reputation as a logician, 

8 See § 1G, entitled the "Opponents of Bacon," in my Introduction to 
the Novum Organum. The only unfavourable opinion of Bacon's 
philosophy, expressed by a man of real eminence, previously to the present 
century which I have met with is that of Harvey, as given in Aubrey 'a 
Lives (Letters written by Eminent Persons in the Seventeenth and 
Eighteenth Centuries, to which are added Lives of Eminent Men by John 
Aubrey Esq., 1813, vol. ii. p. 381) : " He" (Harvey) " had been physician 
to the Lord Ch. Bacon, whom he esteemed much for his witt and style, 
but would not allow him to be a great philosopher. Said he to me, ' He 
writes philosophy like a L d Chancellor,' speaking in derision." Harvey, 
however, seems to have had a peculiar dislike of the " neoteriques," to 
whom, we are told on page 383, he once, in conversation with the writer, 
applied a very unsavoury epithet. Nor, perhaps, did he like Bacon per- 
sonally; for (p. 226) " Dr. Harvey told me his eie was like the eie of a 
viper." Be this as it may, the opinion was not an unnatural nor altogether 
an unfair one, as expressed b}* a man of great eminence, in a particular 
branch of science, of one who attempted to make all science his province. 
Then as now, I presume, the philosopher and the specialist were apt to 
misunderstand and undervalue each other. 

Hume, however (History of England, Appendix to the Reign of 
James I.), expresses only modified praise, and is the first author, I believe, 
to institute a comparison of Bacon with Galileo to the advantage of the 
latter. 



156 BACON. 



philosopher, and man of science, during the present century. 
First in time and pre-eminent in bitterness comes the well- 
known work of Count Joseph De Maistre, entitled Kvamen dt 
la Bhilosopliie de Bacon, published posthumously at Paris and 
Lyons in 1836. The motive of this attack, which was un- 
doubtedly provoked by the lavish praises bestowed on Bacon 
by Voltaire and the Encyclopedists, seems to be exclusively 
theological. But when, by modes of reasoning appropriate to 
an ultramontane fanatic, De Maistre has proved to his own 
satisfaction that Bacon was an atheist, who aggravated his 
atheism by hypocrisy, he proceeds to show that he was a char- 
latan and an impostor. He contributed nothing to science 
himself, and it is a mere delusion to suppose that his philo- 
sophy has in any way helped to form those who have done so. 
It is true that he preaches science, but then, like his Church, 
when it preaches Christianity, he preaches without a mission. 
As to individual works, the Be Augmentis is absolutely con- 
temptible ; the Novum Organum is far worse still, for, inde- 
pendently of the particular errors with which it swarms, its 
general aim renders it worthy of Bedlam. Of the attacks 
made on Bacon since the appearance of De Maistre's work, 
the principal are those of Sir David Brewster, Lasson, and 
Liebig. The first of these authors, in his Life of Newton 
(1855), irritated apparently by the injudicious statement of 
<( some modern writers of celebrity " that Newton " owed all 
his discoveries to the application of the principles of Bacon," 
maintains a proposition equally extreme, and, as it seems to 
me, equally untrue, that " he did not derive the slightest ad- 
vantage from Bacon's precepts." Taking occasion of this 
incidental mention of Bacon, Brewster goes on to combat his 
claims generally as a reformer of science. Lasson's monograph 
(published by Gustav Lange, Berlin, 1860), though it extends 
only over thirty-two pages, is the weightiest of the attacks 



BA CON'S REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC ME TIIOD. 1 5 7 



upon Bacon which I have seen. It is written Dot only with 
more moderation, but with far more knowledge of Bacon's 
writings, and with more sympathy with the philosophical spirit 
in its relation to science, than is the violent diatribe of Liebig, 
so much better known in this country. While maintain ing, 
with much truth, that the reformation of science was not the 
work of a single man, but the gradual product of the age, and 
disputing Bacon's claim to be regarded, in the proper sense of 
the term, as a philosopher, besides finding special fault with 
his theory of Induction, his conception of Forms, his criticism 
of Final Causes, &c, he allows that he did great service in 
spreading a taste for experimental inquiry and in drawing the 
popular attention to the importance of consulting facts. 
Liebig's pamphlet, which has been already noticed, 9 was oc- 
casioned by his annoyance at the rejection of some of his 
chemical theories by English agriculturists. Their singular 
obstinacy must, he thought, be due to some inherent delect in 
the English mind, and this suspicion led him to the study of 
the English philosophers. When, at last, he came to the 
works of Bacon, all was clear. These furnished, if not the 
source, at least the typical example of the methods of experi- 
ment and reasoning common amongst the English dilettanti 
who had had the temerity to reject his theories. This work 
repeats many of the arguments of Brewster and Lasson, but 
with much exaggeration and asperity. It seems to me to con- 
tribute absolutely nothing new to the controversy, and to dis- 
play throughout a determination to make good at all hazards 
a preconceived opinion; and yet this appears to be the princi- 
pal source from which many Englishmen now derive their 
estimate of the scientific and philosophical significance of theil 
illustrious countryman. 

• See note on p. 133. 



i$8 BACON, 



As I shall hereafter have occasion to speak of the favour- 
able, and even enthusiastic, appreciation of Bacon's method 
shown by various writers from his own day down to ours, I 
have thought it well here to say something', in connexion with 
the objections taken to it, of the most powerful, or the most 
influential, of its adverse critics. 



CHAPTER V. 



I propose, in the former part of this chapter, to consider 
Bacon's philosophical opinions, as distinct from his opinions 
on Logic and the Method of Science. I shall then pass on to 
his religious opinions, which may conveniently he considered 
jn the same chapter. 

Bacon was not the founder of a philosophical school. Indeed, 
there is no character which he would himself have more em- 
phatically repudiated. " First of all, then, I must request 
men not to suppose that after the fashion of the ancient 
Greeks, and of certain moderns, as Telesius, Patricius, Severi- 
nus, I wish to found a new sect in philosophy" (Nov. Org. 
book i. aph. 116). But, though not the founder of any 
special school of philosophy, it seems to me unquestionable 
that his exposition of his method, and, perhaps, also individual 
expressions in his writings, contributed in no small degree to 
the creation of what is commonly called the empirical school 
of English philosophy. As, however, I shall discuss this 
question in the next chapter, it is unnecessary that 1 should 
dwell upon it here. It may be enough to say that, like So- 
crates, he rather gave an impulse to others, and suggested new 
lines of inquiry, than elaborated a definite system of his own. 

But, at the same time, it is interesting to ask what the 
opinions of Bacon were, so far as we can gather them, on the 



i6o BACON. 



controverted questions of psychology, ontology, and ethics. 
Now, as to what, for want of a better name, may be called 
ontological or metaphysical questions, the questions, namely, 
which relate to the origin and essential nature of matter and 
mind, and the relation between the two, his ordinary attitude 
is that of a disinterested, if not a contemptuous, silence. The 
passage just cited proceeds as follows : " For this is not what 
I am about ; nor do I think that it makes much difference to 
the fortunes of men what abstract notions one may entertain 
concerning nature and the principles of things ; and no doubt 
many old theories of this kind can be revived and many new 
ones introduced, just as many schemes of the heavens may be 
supposed, which agree well enough with the phenomena and 
yet differ from each other." A deep sense of the unprofitable 
character of these speculations has, indeed, been a characteristic 
not of the Baconian philosophy only, but of British philosophy 
in general, which, with a healthy instinct, has usually either 
avoided them altogether or discussed them solely with the view 
of showing that they lie outside the limits of human know- 
ledge. An apparent exception is, perhaps, to be found in 
Bacon's constant recurrence to the doctrines of the Atomists, 
as to the atoms and the void. But these, properly speaking, 
are questions of physics rather than of metaphysics. On the 
standing feud between what are, somewhat uncouthly, called 
the Idealists, the Materialists, and the Dualists, there is, so 
far as I am aware, no formal discussion in Bacon's writings, 
unless we count a passage in the De Principiis atque Origini- 
bus, in which, quite sincerely as I believe, he adopts the 
scriptural doctrine of creation out of nothing by the omni- 
potent power of God. " For there seem to be three dogmas 
which we know, as a matter of faith, concerning this question. 
The first is that matter was created out of nothing. The 
second, that the evolution of the system (" eductio sy sterna tis") 



PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIONS, id 



was effected by the word of omnipotence, and that matter did 
not evolve itself from chaos into that configuration. The 
third, that this configuration (before the fall) was the best of 

which matter (as it had been created) was susceptible 

In these questions therefore we must rest upon faith and the 
firmaments of faith." l 

The fact is that Bacon lived too early or too late to take 
any serious part in these metaphysical discussions. In their 
scholastic form they had become discredited, and their new 
form, under which they were to exercise so much of the best 
thought of the two succeeding centuries, had not yet been 
impressed on them by the genius of Descartes. Bacon assumes 
the ordinary distinction of mind and matter, an universe of 
objects to be known and a thinking subject capable, with due 
care and discipline, of attaining to a knowledge of them, with- 
out, apparently, troubling himself as to the ulterior questions, 
what is knowledge, how can I become conscious of that which 
is not myself, and what are the ultimate meaning and relation 
of the two terms in this comparison. 

On questions of psychology, as distinct from metaphysics, 
we find a fair number of passages in Bacon's writings. The 
most important perhaps are those in which, following 
Telesius, the celebrated philosopher of Cosenza (b. 1509, 
d. 1588), whose works seem greatly to have interested him, 
he asserts the duality of the human soul. Man, according to 
this doctrine (which is stated most fully in Be Augnirnti.s, iv. 
3), has two souls, one peculiar to himself, the rational soul 
which he derives from the breath of God, the other, shared by 
him in common with the brutes, the irrational soul, which 
comes from " the wombs of the elements." u Let us now pro- 

1 The original of this passage will bo found in Ellis ami Bpedding'f 
Bacon, vol. iii. p. 110, or in my edition of the Novum Orqanvm. p. 15. 

M 



162 BACON. 



ceed to the doctrine which concerns the Human Soul, from 
the treasures whereof all other doctrines are derived. The 
parts thereof are two : the one treats of the rational soul, which 
is divine ; the other of the irrational soul, which is common 
with the brutes. I mentioned a little above (in speaking of 
Forms) these two different emanations of souls, which show 
themselves in their first creation ; the one springing from the 
breath of God, the other from the wombs of the elements. 
For touching the first generation of the rational soul, the 
Scripture says, ' He made man of the dust of the earth, and 
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life/ But the genera- 
tion of the irrational soul, or of brutes, was effected by the 
words, ( Let the water bring forth ; let the earth bring forth.' 
Now this soul (as it exists in man) is only the instrument of 
the rational soul, and has its origin, like that of the brutes, in 
the dust of the earth. For it is not said that ' He made the 
body of man of the dust of the earth/ but that ' He made 
man ; ' that is, the entire man, excepting only the breath of 
life. Wherefore the first part of the general doctrine con- 
cerning the human soul I will term the doctrine concerning 
the Breath of Life; the second the doctrine concerning the 
Sensible or Produced Soul. And yet, as hitherto I handle 
philosophy only, I would not borrow this division from 
theology, if it were not consonant with the principles of 
philosophy also. For there are many and great excellencies 
of the human soul above the souls of brutes, manifest even to 
those who philosophise according to sense. Now, wherever 
the mark of so many and so great excellencies is found, 
there also a specific difference ought to be constituted; 
and therefore I am not too well pleased with the confused 
and promiscuous manner in which philosophers handle the 
functions of the soul, as if the human soul differed from the 
soul of brutes in degree rather than in kind, simply as the 



PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 163 

sun differs from the other stars or gold from the other metals." 
It is possible that this theory of the material generation of the 

lower soul may have contributed to prepare the way for the re- 
ception of the purely materialistic account of the nature and 
origin of knowledge which was presented by Hobbes in the 
next generation. Such a result, however, I believe, would 
have been utterly abhorrent to Bacon himself. 2 

He next proceeds to distinguish between the Substance and 
the Faculties of each soul. The inquiry into the "substance" 
of the rational soul is a matter rather for theology than philo- 
sophy. " For inasmuch as the substance of this soul in its 
creation was not extracted or produced out of the mass of 
heaven and earth, but was immediately breathed into man by 
God, and inasmuch as the laws of heaven and earth are the 
proper subjects of philosophy ; how can we expect to obtain from 
philosophy a knowledge of the substance of the rational soul ? 
It must be drawn from the same divine inspiration, from 
which that substance first proceeded/' But the doctrine con- 
cerning the sensible or produced soul is a fit subject of inquiry 
in philosophy, even as regards its substance. " For the 
Sensible Soul, or Soul of Brutes, must clearly be regarded as 
a corporeal substance, attenuated and made invisible by heat/' 
It is, in fact, compounded of flame and air (" ex natura 0am- 
mea et aerea conflata "). This soul, which in man is merely 
the instrument of the rational soul, just as in brutes it finds its 
own instrument in the body, might more fittingly be assigned 
a distinct name and termed " Spirit." 

Quitting these theories, which to us appear so strange, but 



2 The materialistic tendency of Bacon's philosophy is, I think, 
gerated by Lange in his History of Materialism. Bee Qetckicki 

Materialismtts, 2nd ed. vo.. i. pp. 194 — li» ( .> (English Translation, pp. 
236 — 213). Lange, who seems too ready to adopt Liebig's conclusions, 
does scant justice to Bacon's merits. 

M 2 



1 64 BACON. 



which deal with topics much more familiar to the men of 
Bacon's generation than of ours, I may next note his enumera- 
tion of the Faculties both of the higher and the lower soul. 
The Faculties, he says, of the higher soul are well-known ; 
they are Understanding or Intelligence (Intellectus), Reason, 
Imagination, Memory, Appetite, Will, in fine all those which 
are the object of the logical and ethical sciences. He then 
makes the profound remark that the origins of these faculties 
should be handled, and that physiologically or psychologically 3 
(idque phj^sice), a work towards which, as he says, nothing of 
note has yet been done. The faculties of Memory, Imagina- 
tion, and Reason are made the basis of the general divisions of 
Learning into History, Poetry, and Philosophy. " Intellectus" 
or Understanding does not seem to be employed by Bacon in 
a special sense (like the Aristotelian vovs), as a faculty which 
supplies first principles for reasoning, but in a generic sense, 
as including Memory, Imagination, and Reason. Thus, in the 
Second Book of the Advancement of Learning, he says : " The 
parts of human learning have reference to the three parts of 
Man's Understanding, which is the seat of learning : History to 
his Memory, Poesy to his Imagination, and Philosophy to his 
Reason." And, though, in the corresponding part of the 
De Augmentis (book ii. ch. 1), the word " Understanding" is 
replaced by " Anima Rationalis," he seems almost immediately 
afterwards to employ Understanding (" Intellectus")* as a 
generic term ; for sense is called the door of the understanding 
(" intellectus janua"), and then the intellectual processes 
which follow on the impressions of sense are enumerated as 
Memory, Imagination, and Reason. Imagination exercises 

3 In Bacon's time, the word " physical " included both what we should 
now term psychological and what we should now term phjsiological. 
The Greek term for Nature (4>v(ris) was general in its meaning, and applied 
to the world of mind as well as the world of matter. 



PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 165 

the functions of a messenger or intermediary in both depart- 
ments, that of Reason and that of Will. " For sense sends ;ill 
kinds of images over to imagination for reason to judge of; 
and reason again, when it has made its judgment and selection, 
sends them over to imagination before the decree be put in 
execution." 4 "But neither is the imagination simply and 
only a messenger ; it is either invested with or usurps no 
small authority in itself, besides the simple conveyance of the 
message. For we see that in matters of faith and religion our 

imagination exalts itself above our reason And again 

it is no small dominion which imagination holds in persuasions 
that are wrought by eloquence ; for when by arts of speech 
the minds of men are soothed, inflamed, and carried hither 
and thither, it is all done by stimulating the imagination till 
it becomes ungovernable, and not only sets reason at nought, 
but offers violence to it, partly by blinding, partly by incensing 
it." The prominence here given to the warping effect of the 
imagination over the reason accords well with Bacon's neglect 
or depreciation of this faculty in his Novum Orgarann. 

The inferior or sensible soul has two, or rather three, prin- 
cipal faculties, Voluntary Motion and Sense, from which latter 
we must distinguish Perception. Were it not for a marvellous 
mistake of M. de Remusat, 5 it would hardly be necessary to 
point out that Bacon's distinction of Sense and Perception is 
utterly different from that drawn by later philosophers (such 
as Reid and Stewart) between Perception and Sensation. By 
Perception he understands unconscious or reflex action or re- 
action, whether in animate or inanimate bodies. Such are 
the attraction of the magnet, the union of two bubbles, recovery 
after pressure, in the case of insensible bodies; and, in the 

4 De Augm. book v. oh. i. 

• Bacon, par Charles de .Remusat, p. 270, n. 1. 



1 66 BACON. 



case of sensible bodies, the digestion of food, the beating of the 
heart and pulse, " the performance by the viscera, like so many 
workshops, each of its own work." Sense, on the other hand, 
is conscious affection. That this distinction is of great import- 
ance in Psychology need not be stated. 

It may be noticed that the constant use of the term 
ec Faculty," and the sharp line of demarcation drawn here and 
in similar passages between the offices of the so-called " facul- 
ties," was a common feature of the philosophy of the seventeenth 
and eighteenth centuries. Locke criticises the expression. " I 
suspect that this way of speaking of Faculties has misled many 
into a confused notion of so many distinct agents in us, which 
had their several provinces and authorities, and did command, 
obey, and perform several actions, as so many distinct beings ; 
which has been no small occasion of wrangling, obscurity, and 
uncertainty in questions relating to them." 6 He proposes to 
substitute the word Power. A better substitute, perhaps, 
would be Act or Operation 1 . Another danger attending the 
constant and incautious employment of this term may be 
pointed out in connexion with the more refined analyses of 
recent psychologists. Our mental operations are far more 
complex than at first sight would be supposed. Many of our 
psychical acts which are apparently the most simple admit, on 
analysis, of being decomposed into a variety of elements. Thus, 
I recognize an object in the street as a dog. This act, appa- 
rently so simple and instantaneous, involves at least Sensation, 
Perception, Association of Ideas, Recollection, Comparison, 
Judgment. Now, if I single out one of these elements, and 
call the act, say one of perception, or of recollection, or of 
judgment, I ought at the same time to bear in mind that it 
includes many other elements as well. 

6 Essay concerning Human Understanding, book ii. ch. 21, § 6. 



PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 167 



As distinct from the " Doctrina de Anima" (or, as we should 
now say, Psychology), there are two arts which treat of the 
use and objects of the mental faculties. These are Logic and 
Ethic. " Logic discourses of the Understanding and Reason ; 

Ethic of the Will, Appetite, and Affections: the one produces 
judgments, the other actions." {De Augm* mti» t hook v. eh. 1.) 
Logic is used in an extremely wide sense, as including not only 
the Art of Discovery and the Art of Proof, but also the Art of 
Memory and the Art of Rhetoric. 

That the only source of our ordinary knowledge is to be 
found in experience Bacon seems to assume throughout his 
works/ though he never, so far as I recollect, attempts to a 
tain the conditions of experience or to analyse it into the 
elements of which it consists. The source of some portions of 
our knowledge, such as that of " the substance of the rational 
soul" 8 and of moral principles, 9 is referred to Divine Inspi- 
ration, but this, I think, is usually the inspiration of the 
Bible, given once for all, rather than any constant illumi- 
nation specially imparted to the individual. In one place, 
however, at least, (l)e Augm. book ix. ; E. and S. vol. i. 
p. 831,) he does undoubtedly refer our moral sentiments to 
a sort of divine influence, acting immediately and with- 
out any dependence on the ordinary avenues of knowledge. 
(f It must be confessed that a great part of the moral law *' [as 
communicated in the Scriptures] " is higher than the light 

7 See, for instance, Nov. Org. i. 19—22; De Augm. iii. 1 ad init. : 
" For all knowledge admits of two kinds of information. ( )ne of them ii 
inspired by divine revelation ; the other has its origin in Mntt. Let us, 
therefore, divide knowledge into Theology and Philoeophy." In tin 

(ributio Operis, prefixed to the Norton Oruniium. he speaks of M •:.- 
"that from which, in natural matters, all things are to he derived, vnlcss 
a man please to go mad." 

8 De Augm. iv. 3 (E. and B., vol. i. p. Oof,). 

9 De Augm. vii. 3 (vol. i. p. 732) ; ix. (pp. 830, BS1). 



168 BACON. 



of nature can aspire to. Nevertheless what is said, that man 
has by the light and. law of nature some notions of virtue and 
vice, justice and injustice, good and evil, is most true. But 
we must observe that the expression Light of Nature is used 
in two several senses : the one, so far as it springs from sense, 
induction, reason, arguments, according to the laws of heaven 
and earth ; the other, so far as it flashes on the mind of man 
by an inward instinct, according to the law of conscience, 
which is a spark and relic, as it were, of his ancient and pri- 
mitive purity. And in this latter sense chiefly does the soul 
partake of some light to behold and discern the perfection of 
the moral law ; which light, however, is not altogether clear, 
but such as rather to convince us, in some measure, of vice, 
than to inform us fully of our duty." Here, in addition to 
the "Sense" and " Divine Inspiration" (there confined to 
Theology) which are spoken of as if they were the sole sources 
of knowledge at the beginning of the Third Book JDe Augmentis, 
we seem to have a third source of knowledge, corresponding 
almost exactly with what Butler and most popular moralists, 
in conformity with ordinary language, call " Conscience." 
This faint glimmering, as it were, of a primitive light may be 
one of the u many and great excellencies of the human soul/' 
referred to in the passage quoted on p. 162. 

Besides the points already noticed, I ought, in this connexion, 
to recall attention to the invaluable Aphorisms in the first 
book of the Novum Organum on the Idola Tribus and the Idola 
Specus, and to the fertile suggestion in Nov. Org. book i. aph. 
127, on the possibility of treating Logic, Ethics, and Politics, 
that is to say, the moral and mental sciences generally, by the 
inductive method. One more matter of psychological interest 
may be added to this list, the striking contribution towards a 
theory of Memory and Association which occurs in Nov. Org, 
ii. 26 and Be Augm. v. 5. 



PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 169 

Bacon's Moral Philosophy, which is mainly contained in the 
seventh book of the Be Aug mentis > has, perhaps, hardly re- 
ceived the attention which it deserves. As Logic treats of the 
Intellect, Ethics treat of the Will. " The will is governed 
by right reason, seduced by apparent good j having for its 
spurs the passions, for its ministers the organs and voluntary 
motions.'" In a chapter of the preceding book (ch. b"), the 
ends of logic and ethics are well compared : " The end of logic 
is to teach forms of argument, in order to guard the under- 
standing, not to ensnare it; in like manner, the end of ethics 
is so to compose the passions, that they may fight on the side 
of reason, and not invade it." The idea that morality con- 
sists in the co-ordination of the passions, in their rationaliza- 
tion, as we might say, is clearly and forcibly stated in this 
passage, though, of course, it is to be found in authors long 
anterior to Bacon. 

Ethics may be divided into two principal doctrines, one, 
theoretical, treating of the exemplar or image of good, the 
other (to which he gives the fanciful title of the Georgics of 
the Mind), practical, laying down rules for the regulation and 
culture of the various parts of our nature, so as to bring them 
into conformity with the image of good, when found. Of this 
practical side of ethics, he complains that, for the most part, 
it has been passed over, as not enabling men to display the 
point of their wit or the power of their eloquence. On the 
theoretical side, he finds fault with previous philosophers for 
not having carried their inquiries deeper, by searching for the 
roots of good and evil, and the very fibres of those roots; " if 
they had consulted with the Nature of Things no less than 
with moral axioms " (that is to say, the popular and received 
notions of virtue and vice, pleasure and pain), " they would 
have made their doctrines less prolix, but more profound." 
He then endeavours to " open and cleanse the fountains of 



i^o * BACON. 



morality" by examining its fundamental conception of Good. 
Good, he finds, is either public or private, and the appetite to 
both these kinds of good is native to the human mind, and, 
indeed, to everything which exists. " There is formed and 
imprinted in everything an appetite towards two natures of 
good : to one nature, inasmuch as everything is a Whole in 
itself; to the other, inasmuch as it is a part of a greater 
whole. And this latter nature is more worthy and powerful 
than the former, as it tends to the conservation of a more 
general form. Let the former be named " Individual or Self 
Good," the latter " Good of Communion." Those of my 
readers who are at all acquainted with the subsequent de- 
velopement of Moral Philosophy in England will not fail to 
find in this sentence the germ of one of the leading ideas 
in the systems of Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, and many other 
English moralists. 

Individual or Self Good is divided into Active and Passive 
Good, " which are best disclosed in the two several appetites 
in creatures : the one, to preserve and continue themselves ; 
the other, to multiply and propagate themselves." Passive 
Good, again, is subdivided into Conservative and Perfective 
Good, whereof that of perfecting is the higher ; " for to pre- 
serve a thing in its existing state is the less, to raise the same 
to a higher nature is the greater." Throughout the universe, 
there are always to be found " some nobler natures to the 
dignity and excellence whereof inferior natures aspire as to 
their sources and origins/'' But/ when men, by the workings 
of blind ambition, are led to seek mere exaltation of place 
instead of an exaltation of nature, so false and preposterous an 
imitation of the desire for perfective good becomes the very 
plague of life, and a whirlwind carrying away and subverting 
all that is best within them. 

" That good of man which respecteth and beholdeth society," 



PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. i;i 

I am here quoting from the Advancement of Learning* "we 

may term duty; because the term of duty is more proper to a 
mind well framed and disposed towards others, as the term of 
virtue is applied toa mind well formed and composed in itself: 
though neither can a man understand virtue without some re- 
lation to society, nor duty without an inward disposition. This 
part may seem at first to pertain to science civil and politic" 
(which Bacon distinguishes from Ethics); "but not it it he 
well observed. For it concerneth the regiment and govern- 
ment of every man over himself, and not over others." " This 
part of duty is subdivided into two parts: the common duty 
of every man, as a man or member of a state; the other, the 
respective or special duty of every man, in his profess 
vocation, and place." Casuistry is admitted into Ethics 
considering- and deciding between "comparative duties." 
"The knowledge concerning good as respects Bociety doth 
handle it also, not simply alone, but comparatively \ where- 
unto belongeth the weighing of duties between person ami 
person, case and case, particular and public. 

It is a remark very characteristic of Bacon's practical turn 
of mind, as well as of his ethical point of view, that the 
superiority of the public to the private good determines the 
controversy amongst the ancient philosophers as to the relative 
advantages of the practical and contemplative life in favour of 
the former. For the reasons, he says, adduced by Aristotle in 
favour of the latter have respect only to private good and the 
pleasure or dignity of the individual. Nor, if the monastic life 
had been regarded as merely and strictly contemplative, and not 
engaged in the performance of any duties whatsoever, could any 
doubt on this question have ever arisen in tin- chinch. "A- for 
mere contemplation, ending in itself, and casting no rays of heat 
or light on human society, assuredly Theology knows it not" 
1 The parallel passage is in De Any mint is, vii. 2. 



172 BA CON. 



It may be noticed also that Bacon finds a special argument 
for the divine origin of the Christian religion in its marked 
preference of the common to the individual good. " Never in 
any age has there been found any philosophy, sect, religion, 
law, or discipline, which did so highly exalt the good which is 
communicative, and depress the good which is private and 
particular, as the Holy Christian Faith; whence it is clear 
that it was one and the same God who gave those laws of 
Nature" (by which the lesser seeks the greater) " to inanimate 
creatures and the law of Christ to man." 

It might be inferred from this passage, in which Bacon 
argues in favour of the divine origin of Christianity because it 
satisfies certain moral pre-conceptions, instead of supporting 
his ethical theory by the authority of Christianity, that he had 
already arrived at the point of view which regards Ethics as an 
independent science, having its roots not in Theology, but in 
human nature. The same conclusion might also be drawn 
from his general mode of treating ethical questions in the Be 
Augmentis, as well as from the passage in the Novum Organum 
(i. 127) in which he includes Ethics amongst the sciences 
admitting of the application of the inductive method. Yet, 
when he comes to consider expressly the relation of Ethics 
to Theology, he regards the former as simply the handmaid 
of the latter, having indeed an office of her own, but one to be 
exercised in strict subordination to that of the master-science. 2 

2 There is a curious passage in the Advancement of Learning, book i. 
(repeated in the Be Augmentis, E. and S. vol. i., p. 465), in which the 
independent study of Moral Philosophy seems, by implication, to be 
unequivocally condemned : "As for the knowledge which induced the fall, 
it was not the natural knowledge of creatures, but the moral knowledge 
of good and. evil ; wherein the supposition was, that God's commandments 
or prohibitions were not the originals of good and evil, but that they had 
other beo-innings, which man aspired to know ; to the end to make a total 
.defection from God and to depend wholly upon himself." 






PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 173 

" If it be objected that the cure of souls Is the office 
Theology, the assertion is most true; but what is to prevent 
Moral Philosophy being" received into the service of The* 
as a prudent handmaid and faithful follower, to be readV 
her nod, to minister to all her requirements? For as it is 
said in the Psalm, that 'The eyes of the handmaid loot per- 
petually to the hands of her mistress/ and yet no doubt many 
things are left to the care and discretion of the handmaid 
ought Moral Philosophy in all things to conform to Theology, 
and hearken to its precepts, yet so as it may yield of Itself, 
within its own limits, many sound and useful lessons." The 
apologetic character of this passage, however, combined with 
the other considerations just urged, might justify us in arguing 
that Bacon was just on the point of detaching Ethics from 
Theology, but that the traditional teaching of his time w 
strong for him. Hobbes, who devoted far more special atten- 
tion to the ultimate grounds of moral and political ideas than 
Bacon had done, was, I believe, the first English writer who 
treated Morals as an entirely distinct science-. Before the 
appearance of Hobbes' works, Grotius had already in his De 
Jure Belli et Pads (published in 1(125) adopted the e 
mode of treatment, and from Hobbes downwards it became 
almost a recognized principle amongst professed writers on 
Morals in England, however much their systems differed in 
other respects, to found them exclusively on the u L;i 
Nature," the " dictates of reason/' or the constitution of man. 
The Will of God ceased to be made the ultimate ground of 
moral obligation (except in a few instances, amongsi which 
that of Locke is conspicuous), and the words of ftevelation, if 
quoted at all, were quoted rather by way of illustration than 
of argument. Nor was this the case with lay writers only. 
The systems of Cudwortti, Clarke, Hutcheeon, and Butler ai 
"independent" as are those of Hobbes, Shaftesbury, and Hume. 



174 BACON. 



To the fundamental questions of Morals, What makes an 
action right, How do I know that it is right, and Why 
should I do a right action rather than a wrong one, Bacon 
supplies no direct answers. Nor did he probably put these 
questions to himself in this direct manner. But if I may ven- 
ture, from the fragments of a system which he has left us, to 
construct answers such as I think he would have given, had 
the questions been put to him, I would suggest that he might 
have expressed his views much as follows. An action is right 
which is good, — good, that is to say, either for ourselves or for 
others, and, wherever the good of self or of a smaller aggregate 
conflicts with that of a larger one, that action will, generally 
speaking, be right which promotes the good of the community 
or of the larger community of the two. I know an action to 
be right, partly by my reason exercised on its effects and on 
the effects of actions similar to it, partly also by that " inward 
instinct, according to the law of conscience, which is a relic of 
man's ancient purity/' and partly too by the words of God's 
Revelation. What impels me to do an action, when I know 
it to be right, is partly obedience to the Will of God, hope of 
His rewards, and fear of His punishments ; partly, a natural 
appetite, impressed on me as on all other objects, to seek good, 
and to seek the greater good rather than the lesser. That twc 
or more inconsistent modes of thought are implied in these 
answers, I am aware. But Bacon and his generation had not 
yet reached that stage in the history of ethical speculation 
when thought on these subjects was clear and consistent. 

Of the precepts for the Georgics or husbandry of the mind, 
I have no space to give any detailed account, interesting as 
some of them are. The whole disquisition on moral philosophy 
is concluded by drawing a parallel between the good of the 
mind and the good of the body. The good of the body con- 
sists of health, beauty, strength, and pleasure. u So, the good 



PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 175 

of the mind, if we view it as informed by Moral Philosophy, 
tends to this : to be sound and free from the perturbatioi 
passion; to be beautiful and adorned with the ornament* 
true comeliness; to be strong and agile for undertaking all 
manner of duties; lastly, not stupid, but retaining a vivid 
sense of pleasure and of all the honourable solaces of life, 
it is easy to see that many have strength of wit and 
who are nevertheless troubled by passions, and whose manners 
bear scarce any marks of grace or elegance; sonic again have 
abundance of grace and elegance, who have no probity of mind 
to will or strength to be able to act rightly ; others again 
there are who, though endowed with a sense of honour and a 
blameless character, are neither an ornament to themselvi 
of any service to the state; while others, though perhaps 
endowed with all these three qualities, yet, from a stoical 
severity and insensibility, have no pleasure in the virtuous 
actions which they practise." 3 

Before quitting this portion of my subject, I ought perl 
briefly to notice Bacon's conception of what he calls Primary 
Philosophy. 4 "Because the distributions and partitions 
knowledge are not like several lines that meet in one ai 
and so touch but in a point, but are like branches of a tree 
that meet in a stem, which hath a dimension ami quantity of 
entireness and continuance before it come to discontinue and 
break itself into arms and boughs; therefore it is good, lx 
we enter into the distribution [of the sciences], to erect and 

3 Dr. Abbott's assertion that " MaohiaTelli was unquestionably Ba 
£ui<le, if not in theoretical, at all events in practical morality," 
examined, and I trust refuted, by me in a previous chapter. 
pp. 41 — 45. 

4 In my description of the Primary Philosophy, 1 baft OOmbuM 
accounts given in the Advancement of /. ii. and the bv 
Augmentis, book iii. eh. 1. 



i;6 BACON, 



constitute one universal science by the name of philosophia 
prima, primitive or summary philosophy, to be as the mother 
of the rest, and to be regarded in the progress of knowledge 
as the main and common way, before we come where the ways 
part and divide themselves." This philosophy, when consti- 
tuted, is to be i( a receptacle for all such profitable observations 
and axioms as fall not within the compass of any of the special 
parts of philosophy or sciences, but are more common and of a 
higher stage" (or, as it is put in the Be Augmentis, " belong 
to several of them in common"). As examples of these common 
principles are given the axiom that " if equals be added to un- 
equals the wholes will be unequal," which is a rule both " of 
mathematics and of distributive justice/' the axiom that 
" things that agree with one and the same third thing agree 
with one another/' which is a rule both of mathematics and 
logic ; the maxim that " Nature best shows itself in its smallest 
portions, " which suggested the atoms of Democritus in Physics, 
and yet led Aristotle, in his Politics, to begin his inquiry into 
the nature of a commonwealth with the family. A collection 
of such axioms would be " a thing of excellent use for displaying 
the unity of nature." To this collection of common axioms 
Bacon adds in the De Augmentis, as another part of the Philo- 
sophia Prima, the inquiry into a the adventitious conditions 
of beings," or " Transcendentals," as he proposes to call them, 
such as Much and Little, Like and Different, Possible and 
Impossible, also Being and Not-Being, &c. But the inquiry 
into the nature of these Transcendentals in the Primary Philo- 
sophy must be C( a real and solid inquiry, according to the laws 
of nature and not of language." Thus, for instance, it must 
endeavour to assign a reason why some things in nature are 
and can be so numerous and plentiful, others so few and scanty ; 
and, again, why between different species there are always 
interposed certain connecting links ("participia") of doubtful 



PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 177 

species, "as moss between corruption and a plant, bats bet 
birds and quadrupeds," and so on. 

It is singular that, in the Novum Organ tun, tbe functions of 
Primary Philosophy are assigned to Natural Philosophy, the 
"great mother of the sciences/' the "trunk" from which if 
the individual arts and sciences be separated, they cannot -row, 5 
while some of the common axioms with which the Primary 
Philosophy deals occur as examples of the Instant in- Con formes 
or Parallel Instances. 6 Both in describing the relation of the 
individual sciences to Natural Philosophy and in bringing 
together his "Parallel Instances," the predominant idea in 
Bacon's mind seems to be that of the unity of nature amidst 
all its variety. 7 

The student of Ancient Philosophy will not fail to compare 
with Bacon's conception of the Primary Philosophy that 
"synoptical view of the relationship of the various sciences 
one with another and with the nature of real being/' 1 in the 
study of which the young philosophers of Plato's Republic are 
to spend ten years of their lives, after they have studied the 
sciences separately as boys, and before they enter 00 the supreme 
science of Dialectic or the study of Being in itself. What, 
however, suggested to Bacon the name, and what really corre- 
sponded more to his own conception than he seems t<> have 

6 See Nov. Org. book i. aphs. 79, 80, and 1113* notes en these 
aphorisms. 

6 Nov. Org. book ii. aph. 27. 

7 The idea of the unity of science is the complement <>t' tint of the 
unity of nature, each implying the other. 'Let all divisions of know- 
ledge," savs Bacon {De Augmentis, book iv. eh. 1). "be understood end 
employed " rather for lines to mark or distinguish, " than for - OtioM to 
cut and separate; in order that solution of continuity in SoienOM may 
always be avoided. For the contrary hereof has made particular -.iencea 
to become barren, shallow, and erroneous." 

• See Plato's Republic, hook \ ii. p. o'M b, c. 

I 



178 BACON. 



imagined, was the Trpcorrj cfuXoaocpia or OedXoyla of Aristotle, 
contained in the books subsequently called Meta-physica. 
Aristotle's object in this " Science of Being" was, like Bacon's, 
to consider Nature in its more general aspects and to discuss 
those principles and ideas which are common to many or to all 
the sciences. f 

Bacon's conception should be enlarged into what I may call 
the Science of the Sciences (Wissenschaftslehre), and then it 
represents what seems to me to be a most important branch both 
of knowledge and education. In addition to the several indi- 
vidual sciences, dealing with man or external nature, there is 
room for another or general science, whose function it should 
be to consider these individual sciences in their relations one to 
another, to discuss their leading principles and dominant ideas, 
whether common to all or some sciences or peculiar to each 
individual science, and to note, as distinct from Logic (which 
should deal with methods in their ultimate analysis), the 
various forms and combinations which the logical methods 
assume when applied to the investigation or elucidation of the 
different departments of knowledge. Towards such a science 
or philosophy several recent writers have made large and im- 
portant contributions, nor were those of Bacon himself, as 
contained in the Be Augm.entis and some portions of the Novum 
Organum, by any means contemptible. 

In concluding this division of the chapter, I must again 
remind the reader that Bacon's merit does not consist in his 
philosophical teaching in the proper sense of the term, but in 
his assertion of the necessity of a new method, of a new range 
of studies, of a new spirit of inquiry. With the ultimate 
nature and conditions of knowledge and being he did not much 
concern himself, so long as he could arrive at what was practi- 
cally true for man, and could certify 1o himself the steps by 






PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIO 

which he had arrived at it. He was a logician, in the \\ 
and fullest sense of the word. A philosopher he did Dot claim 
to be; and though I believe that his works exerted a very 

powerful influence on the philosophical speculations of the two 
succeeding centuries, a philosopher, in the strict sense of the 
term, he was not. 



Two of the most striking Aphorisms in the First Book of 
the Novum Crganum* are the 65th and 89th. The former has 
already been translated on pp. 97, 98, to which the reader 
should refer back. In the latter, speaking of the causes of the 
slight progress hitherto made by men in the sciences, Bacon 
says: " Nor is this reason to be passed by, that natural philoso- 
phy has in all ages found a troublesome adversary and one hard 
to deal with ; namely, superstition and a blind and immoderate 
zeal for religion." And again: "But in such mixtures oJ 
theology with philosophy, those things only are comprehended, 
which are now received in philosophy ; but whatever is new, 
though the change be for the better, is all hut expelled and 
exterminated." And he sums up as follows : " But to him 
who truly considers the matter, natural philosophy is, after the 
word of God, the surest remedy against Buperstition, as well 
as the most approved nourishment for faith. And hence Bne 
is rightly given to religion as her most faithful handmaid ; 
since the one shows the will of God, and the other His power. ° 

Now it appears to me that these passages, and the complete 
separation which he there advocates between theology and 
science, furnish the best key to Bacon's religions opinions, and, 
at the same time, afford an explanation iA' the almost constant 



9 The remark* which fellow en Baoon'i Religions Opinions are I 
with slight alterations, from § 7 of my Introduction to tlu' N*9wm 
Organum. 

N 2 



i8o BACON. 



disputes which have been carried on nearly from his own times 
to ours as to what the nature of his religious opinions really 
was. It is easy to see that a man who penned the above 
sentences might readily be suspected of harbouring in his mind 
a still greater mistrust of theological conclusions than he 
overtly expresses ; and it is, at the same time, I think, no less 
easy to see, if we know anything of the history of opinion, that 
the maxims expressed might in Bacon's age, when speculations 
of this kind and the comparison of conclusions arrived at in 
different branches of knowledge were comparatively rare, be 
uttered, even by a man of the most religious temperament, in 
perfect good -faith. 

I am myself of opinion not only that the religious side of 
these Aphorisms expresses Bacon's sincere convictions, but also 
that he did not materially dissent from the religious teaching 
which was generally current in his day on what may be called 
the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. 

Any reader who wishes to arrive at an independent opinion 
on this point ought carefully to compare the following references 
(which are too long to be extracted) : Nov. Org. i. 65, 89 ; 
De Augmentis, book i. (E. and S., vol. i. pp. 433 — 437), iii. 
2, iii. 4, ix. throughout; Essays on Unity in Religion, Atheism, 
and Superstition; and, lastly, Bacon's formal Confession of 
Faith. 1 Of this last piece, however, it should be stated that it 
first appeared in the Remains (1648), and that, as it is 
described in the Harleian MS. as by Mr. Bacon, it must have 
been written before the summer of 1603. Thus, it may 
possibly (though I have no positive reason for saying that it 
is so) enter into more minute details of doctrine than Bacon 
would afterwards have been disposed to do. To the Christian 

1 For this document see Ellis and Spedding's Edition of Bacon's Works, 
vol. vii. pp. 215—226. 



PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 181 



Paradoxes I do not refer, as being now known to have been 
written by another hand. 

On carefully considering these and the other passages in 

which Bacon alludes to religion, or handles religious subji 
the impression left on my mind may be summed up in the 
following" conclusions. 

1st. Notwithstanding his admiration for the philosophy of 
Democritus, and his rejection of Final Causes from the domain 
of Physics, 2 he retained an unwavering faith in the i 
of the Supreme God, the creator and fashioner of the nni\ 
The following well-known sentences from the Essay on Atk< 
(published, it must be recollected, in its corrected form by 
Bacon's own authority in 1625, the year before his death) 
express, I believe, the most sincere convictions of his heart : 
" I had rather believe all the fables in the Legend, and the 
Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is 
without a mind. And therefore God never wrought miracle 
to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it. 
It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to 
atheism ; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about 
to religion. For while the mind of man looketh upon second 
causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them, and go DO 
further; but when it beholdeth the chain of them, confederate 
and linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and 
Deity." 

2nd. I cannot question that Bacon also accepted the doctrine 
of a Divine Providence and a providential order of the world. 
This- in fact, is implied in the above passage. Bui there 
still more explicit statements on this subject in 1>> ./ ; < 
ii. 11, and iii. 2 of the same work. These ] flust have 

passed under Bacon's hands and received his final approval as 
late as 1(522 or 102:3. 

2 On this subject, B66 pp. 1 i - 1 11 T. 



1 82 BACON. 



3rd. If we compare Be Aagmentis, book i. (E. and S., vol. i. 
pp. 483, 484), book iv. ch. 1. (p. 585), and book iv. ch. 
3 (pp. 605, 606), we shall, I think, conclude that, while Bacon 
had no doubt as to the immortality of the soul, he was, like 
some of the early fathers, inclined to regard the belief as resting 
rather on a direct revelation from God than on a necessary, or 
perhaps even legitimate, conclusion of human reason. 

4th. With respect to the Christian mysteries, Bacon seems, 
at least in his earlier years, to have been inclined to trust him- 
self to the guidance of the church ; meaning, doubtless, the 
church as understood by Anglican Divines, who, passing over 
the intermediate times of Roman superstition, boasted of their 
now restored connexion with the age of the primitive fathers. 
" But there still remains/' he says, at the beginning of the 
last Book of the Be Augmentis, " Sacred or Inspired Theology ; 
whereof, however, if I proceed to treat, I must step out of the 
bark of Human Reason, and pass into the ship of the Church, 
which is only able to direct its course aright by the use of the 
divine compass." How far Bacon's confidence in the " ship 
of the church" was implicit, and without exception, is, I think, 
somewhat doubtful. For it is a notable fact (which I have 
not seen elsewhere noticed) that the passage on the nature and 
attributes of God, including certain statements on the Trinity 
and the division of the elect and reprobate, which occurs 
towards the end of the Advancement of Learning, is altogether 
left out in the Be Augmentis, published eighteen years after- 
wards. Nor, generally, do I notice in Bacon's later works any 
disposition to enter into details on the more specific doctrines 
of religion. 3 

3 Macaulay {Essay on Bacon) says, on the whole, very truly : " He 
loved to dwell on the power of the Christian religion to effect much that 
the ancient philosophers could only promise. He loved to consider that 
religion as the bond of charity, the curb of evil passions, the consolation 



PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 183 



5th. Connected with tin's fact, La the wry wide toleration 
which he was evidently ready to concede to dissidents from the 
more generally received theological opinions. Witness the 

following passages from the essay Of Unify in 1 " Con- 

cerning the Bounds of Unity; the true placing of them im- 
porteth exceedingly. There appear to be two extremes. For 
to certain zelants all speech of pacification is odious, h if I 
Jehu ? What hast thou to do with peace ? turn thee heh'm 
Peace is not the matter, but following and party. Contrari- 
wise, certain Laodiceans and lukewarm persons think they 
may accommodate points of religion by middle ways, and 
taking part of both, and witty reconcilements ; as if they would 
make an arbitrament between God and man. Both these 
extremes are to be avoided ; which will he done, if the league 
of Christians penned by our Saviour himself were in the two 
cross clauses thereof soundly and plainly expounded : He that 
is not with us is against us ; and again. He that is not ag 
tis is with us; that is, if the points fundamental and of substance 
in religion were truly discerned and distinguished from | 
not merely of faith, but of opinion, order, or good intention. 

of the wretched, the support of the timid, the hope of the dying. Bat 
controversies on speculative points of theology seem to bai 
scarcely any portion of his attention. In what be wrote 00 Church 
Government he showed, as far as he dared, a tolerant and charitable spirit. 
He troubled himself not at all about Bomoousiam and rloraoioui 
Monothelites and Nestorians. lie lived in an age in which dispel 
the most subtle points of divinity excited an intense interest throughout 
Europe, and nowhere more than in England, lie was placed in th< 
thick of the conflict. He was in power at the time of the Synod ol 
and must for months have been daily deafened with talk about ,1 
reprobation, and final perseverance. Vet we do no4 remember a line in 
his works from which it can be interred that he was either | Calnnilt or 
an Arminian." I am disposed, however, to think that this description 
applies with more complete a.euraey to Bacon's later than his earlier 
of feeling on these subjects. 



1 84 BACON. 



This is a thing may seem to many a matter trivial, and done 
already. But if it were done less partially, it would be 
embraced more generally." " Concerning the Means of pro- 
curing Unity; men must beware, that in the procuring or 
muniting of religious unity they do not dissolve and deface the 
laws of charity and of human society. There be two swords 
amongst Christians, the spiritual and temporal ; and both have 
their due office and place in the maintenance of religion. But 
we may not take up the third sword, which is Mahomet's 
sword, or like unto it ; that is, to propagate religion by wars 
or by sanguinary persecutions to force consciences ; except it 
be in cases of overt scandal, blasphemy, or intermixture of 
practice against the state ; much less to nourish seditions ; to 
authorize conspiracies and rebellions ; to put the sword into 
the people's hands ; and the like ; tending to the subversion 
of all government, which is the ordinance of God. For this 
is but to dash the first table against the second ; and so to 
consider men as Christians, as we forget that they are men. 
Lucretius the poet, when he beheld the act of Agamemnon, that 
could endure the sacrificing of his own daughter, exclaimed: 

Tantum Relligio potuit suadere malorum : 

What would he have said, if he had known of the massacre in 
France, or the powder treason of England ? He would have 
been seven times more Epicure and atheist than he was. For 
as the temporal sword is to be drawn with great circumspec- 
tion in cases of religion ; so it is a thing monstrous to put it 
into the hands of the common people. Let that be left unto 
the Anabaptists, and other furies. It was great blasphemy 
when the devil said, I will ascend and he like the Highest ; but 
it is greater blasphemy to personate God, and bring him 
in saying, / will descend, and be like the prince of dark- 
ness : and what is it better, to make the cause of religion to 



PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 185 

descend to the cruel and execrable actions of marthering 
princes, butchery of people, and subversion of Btatee and 
governments? Surely this is to bring down the Holy Ghost, 
instead of the likeness of a dove, in the Bhape of a vultu 
raven ; and set out of the bark of a Christian church a ll 
a bark of pirates and Assassins. Therefore it i< most necessary 
that the church by doctrine and decree, princes by their sword, 
and all learnings, both Christian and moral, as by their Mer- 
cury rod, do damn and send to hell for ever those facte and 
opinions tending to the support of the same; as hath been 
already in good part done. Surely in counsels concerning 
religion, that counsel of the apostle would be prefixed, 
hominis non implet juslitiam Dei. And it was a notable obser- 
vation of a wise father, and no less ingenuously confessed ; that 
those ivhich held and persuaded pressure of com 
commonly interested therein themselves for their own ends" 

Here we seem to detect the first note of the key which was 
afterwards struck with such effect by Chillingwortfa in his 
Religion of Protestants, by Jeremy Taylor in his / 
Prophesying, and, above all, by Locke in his Letters on Zb 
lion. And, like these writers, Bacon probably did no1 see the 
consequences of his own principles. Like them, he would 
probably have set limits to Toleration, nor am 1 sure that be 
would not have set precisely the same limit- a- Locke, namely , 
by excluding * Papists " on the one side and u Atheists n on 
the other. As in the case of Locke, too, and, perhaps, of all 
who advocated Toleration in those days, when the true princi- 
ples of Political Philosophy were so imperfectly under-' 

Bacon's zeal against persecution and intolerance arose, pro- 
bably, in no small measure, from vagueness, uncertainty, or 

indifference, in his own religious beliefs. 

6th. The indifference of which I have ju>t spoken WS8, I 
think, certainly one of Bacon's characteristics in relation to 



186 BACON. 



religious controversies. It was not merely that he saw the 
hollowness or absurdity of many of the disputes current in his 
own day. "A man that is of judgment and understanding 
shall sometimes hear ignorant men differ, and know well within 
himself that those which so differ mean one thing, and yet 
they themselves would never agree." " Men create oppositions 
which are not; and put them into new terms so fixed, as 
whereas the meaning ought to govern the term, the term in 
effect governeth the meaning." 4 A man so acute as Bacon 
could not help seeing thus far, but his indifference, I think, 
extended far beyond the range of these mere verbal quibbles 
and scholastic combats. His indifference was not simply an 
indifference of the head ; it was an indifference of the heart. 
What he really cared for was the advancement of science, the 
knowledge of nature, the extension of the kingdom of man. 
He did not repudiate religion, or even theology ; rather, he 
was a respectful, though silent, worshipper ; but, like many 
another man, he entered the shrine only on occasion, while, at 
most times, his business lay far away. There was, perhaps, a 
latent feeling that not much knowledge was to be had in these 
subjects, numerous and eager as were the workmen engaged in 
attempting to extract it; while, in the wide field of nature, 
the harvest was ready, though the labourers were few. And 
so Bacon contented himself with working in what appeared to 
him the more promising field of labour. He sought God in 
nature, and there he recognized, reverenced, and adored Him. 
The same God was also to be found in the ark of the Church, 
and the pages of the Bible ; but Bacon's tastes and pursuits 
lay another way, and hence, though he had no inclination to 
call in question the leading verities of faith, he received them, 

4 Essay of Unity in Religion. These passages do not occur in the 
Essay of Religion, published in 1612, and, consequently, they first 
appeared in 1625. 



PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 187 

always without enthusiasm, and sometimes, even, w itfa apparent 

indifference. 

7th. This last consideration may afford some explanati* 
the two other points to which I shall call attention. One of 
these is the evident preference which Bacon accords to At 

over Superstition. " It were better to have no opinion of G I 
at all, than such an opinion as is unworthy of Him. For the 
one is unbelief, the other is contumely : and certainly sap 
tion is the reproach of the Deity. Plutarch saith well to that 
purpose: Surely (saith he) I had rather a great u\ 
say there was no suck man at all as Plutarch, than that tk 
say that there was one Plutarch that would eat his childn 
soon as they were born; as the poets speak of Saturn. And as 
the contumely is greater towards God, so the danger i 
towards men. Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, 
to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all which may be 
guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion ■ 
but superstition dismounts all these, and erecteth an absolute 
monarchy in the minds of men. Therefore atheism did 
perturb states ; for it makes men wary of themselw iking 

no further: and we see the times inclined to atheism (ai 
time of Augustus Caesar) were civil times. But BUperstition 
hath been the confusion of many states, and bringeth in I new 
primum mobile, that ravisheth all the sphere- rnment." 

In this passage, I think, Bacon thoroughly repref 
spirit of his time. The recoil from the BUperstitioi 
Church of Rome, and especially from the dangers with which 
the machinations of that Church seemed to threaten the 
power, had become, in the reformed countries, so info 

5 Essay of Superstition. Cp. ■ letter bo Tobj Matt] 
version to Romanism (Spedding'i Letters and E#fe, ?oL w. p. 
we find pretty nearly the same words as these oon t a ins d U tb 

of this quotation. 



1 88 BACON. 



almost so unreasoning, that men could conceive of no opinions 
equally dangerous either to the well-being of the individual 
conscience or to the security of the state. It required experi- 
ences like those of the French Revolution to convince men that 
the dissolution of the restraints of religion, in minds which 
from infancy had been accustomed to them, might be even 
still more desolating in its effects on morals and government. 
And meanwhile, this view, as stated by Bacon, bore fruit and 
multiplied. The undiscriminating denunciation of Supersti- 
tion in the seventeenth century, coupled with the freer mode 
of inquiry into the fundamentals of religion which marked the 
close of the period, terminated in results, which, however much 
he may have contributed to them, he would probably have been 
among the last to welcome. 

8th. The last point which I shall notice is also one which 
had a great and undoubted effect on subsequent speculation. 
The interests of Bacon, as we have seen, were in the progress 
of science. What he, above all things, desired was a clear and 
unimpeded course for his favourite pursuit. Now he could 
never forget (or the divines and controversialists of his time 
would never have allowed him to forget) what he states so 
emphatically in a passage of the Novum, Organum, already 
quoted, on the bitter and perennial opposition between Natural 
Philosophy and the blind and immoderate zeal for religion. 
What then so effectual, and what so obvious, as to declare an 
entire separation between the spheres of Science and Theology, 
of Reason and Faith ? Their admixture had made the one 
fantastic, and the other heretical. The remedy, therefore, was 
to put them asunder; to give to reason the things of reason, 
and to faith the things of faith. Then, the one would declare 
the Will of God, and the other His Power. Nor was the idea 
of this truce, I think, suggested solely by the motive of pre- 
serving the rights of science. It was in perfect sincerity, I 



PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIi WS. 



think, that Bacon wrote: "Let us then conclude thai Sacred 
Theology ought to be drawn from the wrord and oracle* 
not from the light of nature or the dictates of reason. For it 
is written, ' The heavens declare the glory of God ;' but it La 
nowhere written, ' The heavens declare the will of God/ M The 
method of the Scholastics had been thoroughly vicious, both in 
applying Scripture to establish the principli ence, and 

in applying reason to establish the principles of religion. Par 
different was the procedure recommended by Bacon both in the 
one case and the other. "But with regard to infereneeSj we 
ought to know that there is left us an use of reason and argu- 
ment (as to mysteries) secondary and respective, though not 
original and absolute. For, after the articles and principles of 
religion have been set in their place, so as to be completely 
exempted from the examination of reason, it is then perm 
us to derive and deduce inferences from them according to 
their analogy. In nature indeed this holds not. For both the 
principles themselves are subject to examination, by Induction, 
I mean, though not by Syllogism, and, besides, these same 
principles have no discordance with reason, so that the lir.-t and 
middle propositions are derived from the same fountain. I 
otherwise in religion, where the first proposition- are ttol only 
self-existent and self-supporting, but likewise unamenable to 
that reason which deduces consequent propositions." ' That it 
did not occur to Bacon to ask on what grounds the authority 
of Scripture itself reposed, may to us appear strange, but tins 
was not one of the questions which the men <>i' that 
in the habit of putting either to themselves or other-. ! 
no reason to doubt that Bacon accepted the authority <•( Scrip- 
ture as an ultimate fact, though, as 1 have already intimated, 
he may, especially towards the latter period of lii> life, have 
felt some hesitation as to the truth or exactitude of BOmfi of 
8 Be Aug mail is, book ix. 



190 BACON. 



the dogmatic inferences which had been deduced from its 
language. 

This sharp separation of Religion and Science, Faith and 
Reason, probably exercised a considerable influence on the turn 
which these speculations took amongst Bacon's successors. 
Hobbes, while he showed no disposition to restrict scientific 
discussions, relegated religion altogether to the cognizance of 
the magistrate. It was the duty of the state to provide a 
religion for its subjects, and these had nothing to do but to 
accept it without doubt, or, at least, without any expression of 
doubt. Thus, the sphere of religion was removed altogether 
from the arena o£ discussion, and we seem here to have almost 
a parody of some of the principles propounded by Bacon. 
Pascal, though whether he was influenced by the writings of 
Bacon or not I have no sufficient grounds for determining, 
attempted to make the divorce between Faith and Reason 
complete, in the interests of Religion, as, at a later period, 
Hume did, or pretended to do, in the interests of Philosophy. 
Locke, though he took a great interest in theological questions 
and himself wrote- theological works, shows no disposition 
either, on the one hand, to question the authority, or even 
the infallibility, of the Scriptures, or, on the other 'hand, to 
allow them to exert any influence on his philosophical specula- 
tions. Bayle tries to exaggerate the discrepancies between 
philosophy and religion, but, not having the robust faith of 
Bacon or Locke, he seems, with some hesitation, ready to 
sacrifice the claims of religious belief to the exigencies of human 
reason. But, however it may have been with particular indivi- 
duals,! cannot question that the general tendency, predominant, 
especially in England, till quite recently, to draw a distinct 
line of demarcation between the spheres of religion, on the one 
side, and philosophy and science, on the other, and to combine 
a sincere belief in the traditional teaching of the Bible or the 



PHILOSOPHICAL & RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. [91 

Church with a perfect independence in the sphere of speculation! 

is due, in large measure, to the teaching and example of Bacon. 

Whether this procedure be or be not legitimate, this is not the 
place to inquire. 7 

7 In writing these paragraphs on Bacon's religious opinions, I ha 
course, read carefully the considerable portion of his work which Kuno 
Fischer devotes to the same subject. But my conclusions, many of which 
agree with his, had almost ali been previously arrived at by au independent 
study of Bacon's writings. 



192 BACON. 



CHAPTER VI. 



Few questions in the history of Philosophy and Science have 
been more keenly debated than the fact and nature of Bacon's 
influence on these pursuits. Some writers have gone so far 
as to maintain that both philosophy and science would have 
been exactly in the same position that they now are, if he had 
never lived. As I can by no means subscribe to this position, 
and should certainly not have undertaken to write this book, 
had I believed it to be even approximately true, I shall endea- 
vour in this Chapter briefly to indicate what I conceive to have 
been the nature of Bacon's influence, as well as to assign some 
grounds for my own opinion that in both departments it has 
been very considerable, while, as respects science properly so 
called, the impulse and direction given to it by Bacon were of 
the very highest importance. 

As I am dealing with two distinct questions, I shall ask, 
first, what was the influence of the Baconian Reform on Philo- 
sophy (under which head I include all inquiries into the 
grounds, conditions, and character of human knowledge and 
human practice), and second, what was its influence on Science 
(a word which I take in its modern sense, as restricted to in- 
quiries into the constitution and modes of action of corporeal 
objects) . 



INFLUENCE ON PHILOSOPHY & SCI i. 

With respect to the first question, I may - - 
own belief, grounded on a careful study ol their 'hat 

the most characteristic school of English psy< 
moralists, and, through them, a most important school of 
European philosophy, has been profoundly influenced bj 
method and speculations of Bacon. The main prii 
Locke's E-s.Su//, namely, that all our ideas art- derived from 
either sensation or reflection, appears to me b 1 in 

germ in the 1st Aphorism of the Novum Onjanum, while to the 
attentive reader there can be no doubt that his whole mo I 
treating psychological questions is thoroughly imbued with 
the spirit of Bacon's method. What Bacon himself - 
(Nov. Org. i. 127), that the Inductive Method Is as applicable 
to Logic (here used as a general term for the study of m 
Ethics, and Politics, as to Natural Philosophy, is admirably 
exemplified in the writings of Locke. It is true that, in the 
Essay, Locke never expressly mentions Bacon's name, but then 
the frequent citation of authors 4 names was ooti a fashi 
that time, as it has come to he of ours. In the short work, how- 
ever, On the Conduct of the Understanding 9 the direct n 
to Bacon are frequent. Thus, at the very heginning, he justi- 
fies his own opinions on the insufficiency of the "I. 
in use" by the authority of the " great Lord- Verulam, who 
not servilely thinking that learning could not b.- adva 
beyond what it was, because for many ages it had Qot 
did not rest in the lazy approbation and applause of what WS8, 

because it was; but enlarged his mind to what might be." 
Locke is generally and justly regarded a- the father oi a' 
the English and French schools of Psychology, and hen 
connect Bacon with Locke i- to connect him with Berk 

Hume, Hartley, Reid, Stewart, the two M;i-. Cond iliac, 

llelvetius Destutt de Tracy, to say QOthing 
more recent writers. Again, 1 think it would be difficult 

o 



194 BACON, 



any one, after carefully reading the 7 th Book of the De Aug- 
mentis and after tracing the obvious applications of Bacon's 
principles and method to the science of conduct, to resist the 
conclusion that his speculations and, perhaps still more, his 
method of investigation are, to a large extent, the source of 
that great school of moral philosophy which, numbering men 
so widely divergent in many respects as Hobbes and Cumber- 
land, Butler and Bentham, agrees in basing the rules of con- 
duct on an inductive examination of the principles of human 
nature and the consequences of human actions. English 
philosophers, whether moralists or psychologists, or, at least, 
much the larger number of them, seem to me to be thoroughly 
Baconian in their aims, in their spirit, and in theii method. 
In the eyes of many this may be a reproach, but, if it be true 
as a fact, it will go far towards establishing a conclusion as to 
the influence of Bacon over one large and important depart- 
ment of investigation. 

Before leaving this branch of my subject, it is only fair to 
mention one very peculiar circumstance connected with it. 
Hobbes had, in early life, been Bacon's secretary, but, though 
he wrote a work expressly on Computation or Logic, there 
is no mention in it of Induction, of the Baconian method, 
or of Bacon himself. It is, perhaps, still more singular that 
there is no mention of Bacon in the Epistle Dedicatory to the 
Elements of Philosophy, where he refers to Galileo, Kepler, 
Harvey, Gassendi, Mersenne, &c. Bacon's name, in fact, so 

1 De Kemusat, whose remarks on Hobbes {Bacon, pp. 405 — 408) seem 
to me veiy just and interesting, says that, to the best of his belief, the 
word Induction occurs only once in Hobbes' writings. This is in a mathe- 
matical controversy with Wallis (Molesworth's Ed., Latin Works, vol. iv. 
p. 179), where he says, in a spirit the very reverse of Baconian : " Inductio 
autem demonstratio non est, nisi ubi particularia omnia enumerantur, quod 
hie est impossible." (But Induction has not the force of demonstration, 
except where all the particulars are enumerated, which is here impossible). 



INFLUENCE ON PHILOSOPHY & SCIENCE. [95 

far as I am aware, oecura only twice in the whole of 1I< 
works, and there without any epithet of praise or hi , 
From the extent of Hobbes' writings and tlie intimate per- 
sonal relations which had formerly existed between him and 
Bacon, I can hardly refer this silence to mere accident. It may 
have been due to some personal pique, or the abstract ch 
ter of Hobbes' mind may have rebelled against the concrete 
and inductive spirit of Baeon's philosophy. For, it may bo 
noticed that there are few writers on moral and political ques- 
tions, in whose works the historical spirit is more conspicu- 
ously absent than in Hobbes. 

The second question is, to my mind, much more difficult to 
answer than the first, though I can entertain no doubt that 
Bacon has exerted a real and beneficial influence 00 the sub- 
sequent progress of science. The extent of this inllueiice, 
however, and its precise character are not easy to determine* 

In the Introduction to my Edition of the Novum Organum 
(§ 14), I have adduced a large number of testimonies to the 
estimation in which Bacon's works on the reform of science 
and scientific method were held from the time of his contem- 
poraries and immediate successors down to the middle of the 
eighteenth century, when the " Baconian Philosophy n and the 
" Baconian Method " had come to be almost universally re- 
garded as terms expressive of accurate and fruitful investiga- 
tion in every department of science. These testimonies include 
those of Descartes, Mersenne, (iassendi, PeiresCj Do Hatnel, 
Bayle, Voltaire, Condillac, D'Alembert in France; Vic© in 
Italy; Comenius, Puffeiidorf, Leibnitz, Huygens, Morhof, 
Boerhaave, Buddseus in Germany; and, in England, the 

group of men who founded or were amongst the earliest 
members of the Royal Society, such a- Wallis, Oldenburg, 
Glanvill, Ilooke, and Boyle. Not only do these writers speak 

'Z 



iq6 BACON. 



with approbation of Bacon's method, but most of them also 
furnish evidence of the impulse which he gave to scientific in- 
quiry and the direction which he impressed upon it. Indeed 
there can be little doubt that the foundation of the Royal 
Society in England, and possibly the same origin may be 
assigned to some similar societies on the Continent, was due 
to the impulse given by Bacon to the study of experimental 
science and the plans which he had devised for its prosecution. 
A review of the whole evidence leads me to the conclusion that 
there can be no question as to the reality of his influence on 
the progress of science in the generation immediately succeed- 
ing his own, though as to the extent and nature of that influ- 
ence there is room for considerable difference of opinion. When 
we arrive at the end of the seventeenth century, a generation 
later, we are, in England at least, in the full tide of experi- 
mental research, and at that time, I believe, the value and in- 
fluence of Bacon's writings had come to be universally acknow- 
ledged. 2 

When we have established the fact of Bacon's influence on 
the progress of science, it remains to ask what the nature of 
that influence was. The title of founder or father of experi- 
mental philosophy, so often ascribed to him by his admirers 
and so often criticised by his detractors, expresses the nature 
of his influence, I think, in a rough, and, perhaps, a somewhat 

2 I have not thought it desirable to enter here on the vexed question 
of Bacon's influence on Newton. In the Introduction to my edition of 
the Novum Organum (§ 14), I have examined it with tolerable fulness, 
and the conclusion which, on a review of all the circumstances, I am 
inclined to adopt is that " Newton had not studied, or did not remember, 
or did not accept the teaching of the early part of the Second Book of the 
Novum Organum, though the precepts and warnings of the First Book, 
in their most general form, had produced a deep impression upon him and 
had, in great measure, suggested to him the aims and methods of his own 
investigations." 



INFLUENCE ON PHILOSOPHY & SCI EX 

exaggerated as well as a somewhat inadequate form, but 
which I regard as being*, in the main, true. Instead, how< 
of examining this or similar expressions, it will be a simpler 

and perhaps a more useful course to state precisely the i 
elusions on this subject at which lhave myself arrive 

1st, He called men, as with the voice of a herald/ to lay 
themselves alongside of nature, to study her way-, and imitate 
her processes. To use his own homely simile, he rang the bell 
which called the other wits together. 5 Other men indeed had 
said much the same thing in whispers or in learned 1 
written for a circle of select readers j but Bacon cried it from 
the house-tops, and invited all men to come in freely and partake 
of the feasfc. In one word, he popularised the study of nature. 

•2nd, He insisted, both by example and precept, on the im- 
portance of experiment as well as observation. Nature, like B 
witness, when put to the torture, would reveal her set 
Experimentation was undoubtedly common in Bacon's time, 
but it was generally associated with the Alchemists, and so, 
while it suffered in reputation, it was confined in ra 
Bacon gave it an extension, a dignity, a popularity which, it 
is not too much to say, must have materially influenced the 
labours of the Royal Society, and the crowning effbrti 
Boyle and Newton. 

3rd, In both these ways, Bacon recalled men to the Btudy 
of facts, and though, in the first instance, he had mainly in 
view the facts of external nature, the influence ofhifl teaching 
soon extended itself, as he undoubtedly purposed that it should 

■ The remainder of this Chapter is taken verbatim f .in 

to inv Edition of the Novum Organ***! § 1 L 

< Thus, he Bays of himself (DtAugm. it. 1 id toil 
buccinator teuton)," && 

* "I have only taken apon metering ■ bell to Oil] otbei 
Letter to Dr. Playfer, printed in Spedding'i Letter* m 
p. 301. 



BACON. 



do, to the facts of mind, conduct, and society. The inductive 
study of Mental, Moral, and Political Philosophy, which has 
been the distinctive characteristic of the best English thought 
from the end of the seventeenth century onwards, is, it seems 
to me, no less really, though I grant it is less obviously, a 
result of the Baconian teaching than the inductive study of 
Natural Philosophy. 

4th, In order to set men free to study facts, it was necessary 
to deliver them from the pernicious subjection to authority, to 
which they had so long been enslaved. Here and there 
throughout the Middle Ages, a solitary thinker, like Roger 
Bacon, may have asserted his independence, and, during the 
century preceding Bacon's time, the murmurs of discontent 
had been becoming loud and frequent, but it required a clear, 
shrill voice, like that of the author of the Great Instauration, 
effectually to awaken men from their slumber. Bacon seems 
to have been thoroughly impressed with the feeling that there 
was no hope for human fortunes, unless these bonds could be 
broken ; and hence the tone of intended and conscious exag- 
geration with which he often sets about this task, as is espe- 
cially the case in the Temporis Partus Masculus and some parts 
of the Novum Organum. Nor can I doubt that his utterances on 
this subject had far more influence in producing the intellectual 
revolution which followed than the utterances of any one of 
his predecessors, or, perhaps, than those of all taken together. 
It would hardly, I think, be an exaggeration to compare Bacon, 
in the intellectual sphere, with Luther, in the sphere of reli- 
gion. And, in truth, there was much in common between the 
two men. Both of them were intensely impressed with the 
importance and reality of their mission ; both of them were 
grimly in earnest ; both of them spurned all obstacles in exist- 
ing opinion, and even exaggerated the differences between 
themselves and their opponents ; and, lastly, each of them re- 



INFLUENCE ON PHILOSOPHY & SCIEN 

tamed, far more than he suspected, the habits of thought, the 
more deeply engrained prejudices, and even the more mis! 
ing forms of expression of his time. Each of them, in fact, 
sowed the seed, without knowing altogether clearly what 

manner of fruit it was likely to bring forth. 

5th, Hardly less important than deliverance from the bond- 
age of authority was the emancipation of reason from the 
bewitching enchantments of imagination. * * uon 

fingo " was a maxim which Newton inherited directly from 

the teaching 1 of Bacon. And, though the reaction against 
hypothesis was carried much too far, and though Ba 
utterances on this subject, to be serviceable at the pn 
time, require much rectification, the warning was one which, 
in his own time, was sorely needed, and which could hardly be 
expressed in language too emphatic. Where; authority was 
wanting, as if by way of revenge, men seemed to put no limit 
to the wildness of their fancies or the extravagance of their 
suppositions. Now, as against both authority and hypothesis. 
Bacon invoked the majesty of facts. The office of Reason, he 
was, in effect, constantly saying, ought not to be limited to an 
examination of the conclusions and their dependence on the 
premisses; what it ought to insist on doing, is 1" examine the 
premisses themselves. What is required is a new I 
Logic of Induction, which shall do for the premisses what the 
old Logic, the Logic of Deduction, does for the conclusions. 
It is not enough that the conclusion follows from the pre- 
misses ; what we require to know is whether the prem 
themselves be true, and, unless we can succeed in - 
this want, we may simply be multiplying error instead ol 
advancing truth. Had this been the only leSSOU which B 

read to his generation, he would, assuredly, have deserved to be 
reckoned amongst the greatest of its benefacl 

6th, But to this Logic of Induction 1 maintain that he 



200 BA CON. 



himself made no contemptible contributions. That our in- 
stances require to be selected and not merely accumulated, was 
a very true and a very needful lesson which he was never 
weary of repeating. And, surely, in this maxim consists the 
whole gist of the Inductive Logic. On what principles we 
shall select our instances, and by what means we shall satisfy 
ourselves of their sufficiency, are other and further questions, 
confessedly most difficult to answer, on which we could hardly 
expect much detailed or permanently useful information from 
a pioneer in this method of inquiry. And yet Bacon is very 
full on at least the first of these questions, and much of what 
he says has, even still, a value for the student. But we are 
here concerned, we must recollect, not with the present value 
of his works, but with their past influence. Now, to the 
amount of that influence, with respect to the subject before us, 
what better testimony can we have than the repetition of these 
rules in the next generation by so eminent a man of science as 
Dr. Robert Hooke, or the appropriation, emendation, and for- 
mulation of them, as the bases of their own methods, almost 
within our own time, by Sir John Herschel and Mr. Mill ? 
Nor is it an unimportant consideration that such phrases as 
" glaring instance," " crucial instance," " clandestine instance," 
" solitary instance," and the like, have become household 
words in our language, and especially in the vocabulary of 
scientific men. 

7th, The manner in which he insisted on the subordination 
of scientific inquiries to practical aims, the furtherance of man's 
estate and the increase of his command over the comforts and 
conveniences of life, is another point in which, I think, Bacon 
profoundly influenced succeeding generations. That his view 
was too exclusive, and his language exaggerated, I readily 
own ; but here again, as in criticising the abuse of authority 
and imagination, I think it difficult to deny that his influence 



INFLUENCE ON PHILOSOPHY & SCIENCE. 201 



was, on the whole, most beneficial. When we recollect the 

frivolous character of many of the questions which nun of the 
most brilliant abilities were then in the habit of disputing, and 
the profound misery or discomfort in which the mass of man- 
kind, then even more than now, was sunk, we can hardlj 
surprise or regret that a great statesman and a greal phil 
pher should have sug-gested the application of man's intellectual 
endowments to the improvement of his material condition. 

8th, Nor must we forget the hopefulness of Bacon as an 
important element in his influence. Men who despair of 
mankind and of the future are, happily, seldom successful in 
persuading others to accept their advice or their systems. 
There is a healthy instinct in man which leads him to believe 
that the future will be better than the past, and that the 
labours of the present generation will not be without their 
effect in improving the condition of the next. No man was 
ever inspired with this feeling more strongly than Bacon. Iff 
stood, like a prophet, on the verge of the promised land, bid- 
ding- men leave, without regret, the desert that was behind 
them, and enter with joyfulness and hopefulness on the rich 
inheritance that was spread out before them. The sixth part 
of the Great, Instawalion, to which all theresl was subservient* 
the philosophy itself which was to be the result of the right 
employment of the method, be hoped only t<> begin. "The 
fortune of the human race," he says, "will give the issue j — 
such an issue, it may be, as in the present condition oftl 
and of the minds of men cannot easily be conceived or ima- 
gined. For the object in view is not only the contempts 
happiness, but the whole fortunes, and aiiairs, and powers, and 
works of men." ° 

9th, To all these sources of influence we must add the 
marvellous language in which Bacon often clothes his though tB. 

8 Distrihutio Opens, ad fin. 

p 



202 BACON. 



His utterances are not infrequently marked with a grandeur 
and solemnity of tone, a majesty of diction, which renders it 
impossible to forget, and difficult even to criticise them. He 
speaks as one having authority, and it is impossible to resist 
the magic of his voice. Whenever he wishes to be emphatic, 
there is the true ring of genius about all that he says. Hence, 
perhaps, it is that there is no author, unless it be Shakspeare, 
who is so easily remembered or so frequently quoted. His 
phraseology, when most quaint, as in the case of the " Idols " 
and the " Instances," is often most attractive to the reader and 
most persistent in its hold on the memory. Hence, too, 
perhaps, it is that there is no author so stimulating. Bacon 
mig-htwell be called the British Socrates. Even had his in- 
dividual precepts been utterly worthless, many men must have 
owed their first impulse to the study of nature, or to indepen- 
dent investigation in general, to the terse and burning words, 
issuing, as it were, from the lips of an irresistible commander, 
with which he urges them to the work. 

Such, I conceive, are the principal modes and directions in 
which the influence of Bacon was exercised. It would be easy 
to add to these, but they will readily suggest others, and the 
limits of this work necessarily compel me to aim at brevity 
rather than expansion. 



THE END, 



!!, 



II 



